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ARCTIC EXPLORATION 



ARCTIC 
EXPLORATION 



BY 



J. DOUGLAS HOARE 



WITH EIGHTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS AND FOUR MAPS 



NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & CO. 

1906 



■H7 



7 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. Early Voyages i 

II. From Hudson to Phipps and Nelson . 17 

III. The Voyage of Buchan and Franklin . 30 

IV. Ross's Failures and Parry's Successes . 35 
V. Franklin's First Overland Journey . " 45 

VI. Parry's Last North-West Voyages . 64 

VII. Franklin's Second Land Journey . 70 

VIII. Parry's North-Polar Voyage . . 79 

IX. Ross's Adventures in the " Victory " . 86 

X. Back's Two Journeys . . 95 

XI. The Discoveries of Dease and Simpson 102 

XII. Franklin's Last Vovage . * . .116 

XIII. Rae and the Boothia Peninsula . 122 

XIV. The Franklin Search begun . .129 
XV. The Voyages of Collinson and M'Clure 137 

XVI. Belcher and the Franklin Search . 150 

XVII. Rae's Journeys of 1851-53 . . 159 

XVIII. M'Clintock and the "Fox" . .168 

XIX. The Voyages of Kane and Hayes . 182 

XX. Hall and the "Polaris" . . 192 

XXI. The "Germania" and the "Hansa" . 200 



VI 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. 

XXII. The Voyage of the "Tegetthoff" 

XXIII. Nares and Smith Sound . 

XXIV. The Greely Tragedy 

XXV. NORDENSKIOLD AND HIS WORK 

XXVI. The Story of the "Jeannette" 

XXVII. Leigh Smith and the "Eira" . 

XXVIII. Greenland and the Earlier Journeys 
of Nansen and Peary . 

XXIX. The Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition 

XXX. Nansen and the "Fram" 

XXXI. Conway and Andree 

XXXII. The Later Voyages of Sverdrup and 
Peary 

XXXIII. Other Recent Expeditions — Abruzzi 
Wellmann, and Toll . 

Index .... 



PAGE 

207 

215 
223 

235 
244 

252 

257 
270 
278 
287 

293 

301 
3°9 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Sailing the Arctic Seas . . . Frontispiece 

From an old print 

An Old Map of the Polar Regions . . i / 

From " Narborough's Voyages," 1694 
Stranded on Nova Zembla . . . 13 ' 

From an old print 

/ 

The "Racehorse" and the "Carcase" in the Ice 28 

From a picture by J. Clively 

Cutting a Passage into Winter Harbour . 42 

From a sketch by Lieut. Beechey 

Crossing the Barren Grounds . . 56 " 

From a drawing by Capt. Back 

The Walrus as seen by Olaus Magnus . . 68 ' 



The Disruption of the Ice round the " Terror " 100 ' 

From a drawing by Capt. Smyth 

Boats among the Ice . . . 134 ' 

From a drawing by Capt. Back 

Fast in the Ice ..... 154 

From a sketch by Lieut. Beechey 
The Franklin Record . . . .174 



viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Eskimo Architects . . . . .192 

From a drawing by Capt. Lyon 

A Bear Hunt ..... 

From an old print 

Eskimos Sledging ..... 

From a drawing by Capt. Lyon 

Peary's Travelling Equipment 

By kind permission of Messrs F. A. Stokes C*. , 

The Meeting between Jackson and Nansen . 274' 

By kind permission of Capt. Jackson and Messrs 
Harper Bros. 

Map of Franz Josef Land . . . . 277 

Map of Spitzbergen .... 286 

In the Slush ..... 288 

By kind permission of Sir Martin Conway and Messrs 
J. M. Dent & Co. 

Andree's Balloon in its Shed . .292 

From a photograph 

The " Polar Star " under Ice Pressure 304 I 

By kind permission of Messrs Hutchinson & Co. 

Chart of the North Polar Regions Attend' 



^--^ 




ARCTIC EXPLORATION 



CHAPTER I 

EARLY VOYAGES 

THE story of the first few centuries of Arctic 
exploration can, of course, never be written. 
The early Norsemen, to whom must go the credit 
for most of the first discoveries, were a piratical race, 
and their many voyages were conducted, for the most 
part, in a strictly business-like spirit. Occasionally one 
of them would happen on a new country by accident, 
just as Naddod the Viking happened upon Iceland in 
86 1 by being driven there by a gale while on his way to 
the Faroe Islands. Occasionally a curious adventurer 
would follow in the footsteps of one of these early 
discoverers, but no serious attempt was made to widen 
the field of knowledge thus opened up, unless the 
Norsemen saw their way to entering upon commercial 
relations with the natives, to the great disadvantage 
of the latter. 

Rumours of the existence of Iceland, or Thule as it 
was then called, were first brought home by Pytheas, 
while Irish monks are known to have stayed there 
early in the ninth century, but probably the first 
attempt to colonise it was made by Thorold about 
a hundred years after Naddod's visit. This worthy 
Viking, feeling it advisable to leave his native land 




AN OLD MAP OF THE POLAR REGIONS 

FROM NARBOROUGH'S " VOYAGES " (1694) 
< intersection 0/ Greenland by Frobisher's Strait should be especially noted 



2 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

after a quarrel with a relative, during the course of 
which the latter had been killed, set his course 
for Iceland, and made himself a new home there. 
Shortly afterwards his son Erik, who seems to have 
inherited his father's taste for murder, followed him to 
his new abode, and later on, when on a voyage of ad- 
venture, set foot upon Greenland. Erik's son, Leif, who 
was also of a roving disposition, sailed far westward in 
ioo A.D., and landed either on Newfoundland or at 
the mouth of the St Lawrence, thus anticipating the 
discovery of America by Columbus by nearly five 
hundred years. 

It was not until the end of the fifteenth century that 
the first serious attempts at Arctic exploration were 
made by John Cabot and his son Sebastian. John 
Cabot was a Venetian, who settled at Bristol probably 
about the year 1474, and to him belongs the honour of 
being the first to suggest the possibility of finding a 
north-west passage to India. In 1496 he received a 
commission from Henry VII. to sail out for the discovery 
of countries and islands unknown to Christian peoples, 
and though the real object of his voyage, discreetly 
veiled beneath these purposely vague terms, was not 
attained, he immortalised his name by the discovery 
of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island. The history 
of the earlier Cabot voyages is sadly obscure, and was 
rendered more so by Sebastian himself, who in his later 
years seems to have claimed discoveries which properly 
belonged to his father. Sebastian is unquestionably 
the hero of his own account of the expedition of 1496, 
which is given by Hakluyt : — 

" When news were brought that Don Christoval 



EARLY VOYAGES 3 

Colon (i.e. Christopher Columbus), the Genoese, had 
discovered the coasts of India, whereof was great talke 
in all the court of King Henry VII., who then reigned, 
insomuch that all men with great admiration affirmed 
it to be a thing more divine than humane to saile 
by the West into the East where spices growe, by a 
way that was never knowen before, by this fame and 
report there increased in my heart a great flame of 
desire to attempt some notable thing. And under- 
standing by reason of the Sphere (i.e. globe) that if I 
should saile by way of the Northwest I should by a 
shorter tract come into India, I thereupon caused the 
king to be advertised of my devise, who immediately 
commanded two Carvels to be furnished with all things 
appertayning to the voyage, which was as farre as I 
remember in the year 1496, in the beginning of Sommer. 
I began therefore to sail toward the Northwest, not 
thinking to find any other land than that of Cathay 
and from thence to turn toward India ; but after certaine 
days, I found that the land ranne towards the North, 
which was to me a great displeasure. Nevertheless, 
sayling along by the coast to see if I could finde any 
gulfe that turned, I found the lande still continent to 
the 58th degree under our Pole. And seeing that the 
coast turned toward the East, despairing to finde the 
passage, I turned backe againe, and sailed downe by 
the coast of that land toward the Equinoctiall (ever with 
intent to finde the saide passage to India) and came 
to that part of this firme lande which is nowe called 
Florida, where my victuals failing, I departed from 
thence and returned into England, where I found great 
tumults among the people, and preparation for warres 



4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

in Scotland, by reason whereof there was no more con- 
sideration had to this voyage." 

John Cabot made a second expedition in 1498, 
and probably died soon after. Sebastian, who had 
accompanied his father on both his American voyages, 
finding the English Government little inclined to 
spend money on further exploration, transferred his 
services to the King of Spain, for whom he did 
excellent work by examining the coast of South 
America. In 1548, however, he returned to England, 
and Edward VI. did him the honour that was his 
just due, by settling on him the sum of 500 marks 
(£166, 13s. 4d.) a year for life, and, according to Hakluyt, 
creating him Grand Pilot. Never did a man deserve 
his honours more, for, by founding the company of 
Merchant Adventurers, of which he was the first 
governor, he did much to extend the foreign commerce 
of the nation, and, by fostering a spirit of enterprise, 
he paved the way for that immense success won by 
our sailors and merchants during the next century. 

The first purely British expedition was that of 
Robert Thorne, of Bristol, at whose instigation, say 
Hall and Grafton, "King Henry VIII. sent out two 
fair ships, well manned and victualled, having in them 
divers cunning men to seek strange regions, and so 
they set forth out of the Thames, on the 20th day of 
May, in the nineteenth yere of his raigne, which was 
the yere of our Lord 1527." The "fair ships" had as 
their objective no less a place than the North Pole, 
but the men do not seem to have been sufficiently 
"cunning" to make much headway against the diffi- 
culties that beset their path, and the chronicles 



EARLY VOYAGES 5 

of the time are singularly reticent concerning their 
doings. 

The voyage of the Trinitie and Minion, which sailed 
in 1536, is one of the most disastrous on record. The 
expedition was sent out with a view to exploring 
North- West America, and it reached the coast of New- 
foundland in safety. It seems, however, to have been 
hopelessly under-provisioned, and the men, having 
little to eat on board and finding themselves unable 
to supplement their scanty store on land, took to 
cannibalism, and would all have perished but for the 
timely arrival of a French ship, which they promptly 
set upon and misappropriated. We are not told what 
happened to the unfortunate Frenchmen, but Henry 
VIII. is reported to have compensated such as 
survived. 

Hitherto the energies of our sailors had been prin- 
cipally devoted to discovering a north-west passage 
to India, Cathay, and the Indies. When, however, 
Cabot returned from Spain and was made " Governour 
of the mysterie and companie of the marchants ad- 
venturers for the discovery of regions, dominions, 
islands and places unknown," he promptly showed how 
well fitted he was for that honourable post by sug- 
gesting that, as the voyages towards the north-west 
had not been attended by much success, it would not 
be amiss to try a change of tactics and to attempt to 
find a way to Cathay by the north-east. The idea was 
taken up enthusiastically, and, as this was the first 
extended maritime venture made by us in distant seas, 
the utmost care was exercised over the preparations. 
Three ships were specially built for the enterprise, 



6 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

and were fitted out in the most substantial manner 
possible. The admiral of the fleet, the Bona Esperanza, 
1 20 tons, was placed under the command of Sir Hugh 
Willoughby, and carried thirty-five persons, who in- 
cluded six merchants. The Edward Bonaventure, 160 
tons, was commanded by Captain Richard Chancellor, 
her company consisting of fifty, including two 
merchants ; and the Bona Confidential 90 tons, was 
commanded by Cornelius Durfourth, and carried 
twenty-eight souls, also including two merchants. 
These three ships sailed from Ratcliffe on May 20, 
and, after tracing the coast of Norway, rounded the 
North Cape in company. Here a storm separated the 
Bonaventure from her sister ships, and, fortunately for 
her and her company, drove her to Vardo, in Norway. 
Willoughby and his two ships succeeded in making the 
coast of Lapland, and spent the winter on the desolate 
coast of the Kola Peninsula. In those days, unfortu- 
nately, but little was known of the art and science of 
wintering in the Arctic regions, and every member of 
the company perished miserably of scurvy. 

Chancellor, after waiting awhile at Vardo in the 
hope that the rest of the fleet would join him there, 
determined to push on on his own account, and he 
eventually succeeded in reaching the north coast of 
Russia. The intelligence of his arrival was conveyed 
to the Czar, Ivan Vasilovich, who was so much in- 
terested in what he heard that he invited him to 
Moscow. There Chancellor spent the winter, and 
with such ardour did he forward the interests of his 
country, that he laid the foundations of that great 
trade between England and Russia which has flourished 



EARLY VOYAGES 7 

ever since. It is worthy of note that his first land- 
ing place is now marked by the great seaport of 
Archangel. 

Chancellor's second expedition was less fortunate, 
for the gallant sailor lost his life in his attempt to con- 
tinue his work. He reached Russia in safety, and once 
more repaired to Moscow, where he continued the 
negotiations which he had previously begun. While 
returning home, however, his ship was wrecked in Pit- 
sligo Bay on the east coast of Scotland and he was 
drowned. 

The expedition of Chancellor and Willoughby had, 
of course, been primarily sent out with a view to find- 
ing a north-east passage to China, and these negotia- 
tions with Russia were a side issue not originally 
contemplated by its promoters. Consequently, while 
Chancellor was away on his second voyage, the Com- 
pany of Merchants Adventurers equipped a second ex- 
pedition for the discovery of the North-East Passage, 
which they placed under the command of Stephen 
Burrough. The Searchthrift, as the ship was named, 
set sail on April 23, 1556, but it was stopped by fog 
and ice, and Burrough was obliged to return to England 
without accomplishing his mission, though he succeeded 
in discovering Nova Zembla. 

The next English mariner to win fame for himself 
by his adventures in the Arctic seas was Martin 
Frobisher, who, under the auspices of Queen Elizabeth, 
the Earl of Warwick, a well-known merchant named 
Lok and others, fitted out a fleet of three cockle-shells, 
the united burden of which was only 73 tons, and set 
sail in 1576, with intent to discover the North- West 



8 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Passage. The chief result of Frobisher's voyage was a 
vast mass of very misleading information. On reaching 
Davis Strait he came to the conclusion that it bisected 
Greenland, an error which retained its place in the 
maps for some three centuries. In the middle of the 
strait he discovered an island which did not exist, while 
he brought home with him the interesting information 
that large deposits of gold existed on the shores which 
he had visited. On the strength of this all sorts of 
plans for working these deposits were taken up, which 
only ended in the financial loss and bitter disappoint- 
ment of their promoters. Frobisher undertook the 
command of two subsequent expeditions, but neither of 
them resulted in any discoveries of much value. His 
name, however, will always be kept alive by the dis- 
covery of Frobisher and Hudson Straits, both of which 
he entered on his first journey. 

We now come to by far the most important of these 
early voyages, namely that made by John Davis, of 
Sandridge, in 1585. Davis was a splendid old sea- 
dog of the finest type — shrewd, patient, and of absolutely 
indomitable courage. So high was his reputation, that 
when a number of merchants, headed by William 
Saunderson, determined to fit out a new expedition for 
the discovery of the North-West Passage, they offered 
him the command, and their offer was promptly accepted. 
The expedition, which consisted of two ships, the 
Sunshine, of 50 tons, and carrying twenty-three men, 
and the Moonshine, 35 tons, and carrying nineteen men, 
started on June 7, and by July 19 it was off the 
south-east coast of Greenland, where Davis heard for 
the first time the grinding together of the great ice- 



EARLY VOYAGES 9 

packs. The shore looked so barren and forbidding — 
" lothsome " is the epithet which Davis applied to it — 
that he named it " Desolation." Rounding the southern 
point of Greenland and bearing northward, he soon 
reached lat. 64°, where he moored his ships among some 
"green and pleasant isles," inhabited by natives who 
were very friendly disposed and quite ready to trade 
with him. From these he learnt that there was a great 
sea towards the north and west, so he set sail and 
shaped his course W.N.W., expecting to get to China. 
Crossing the strait which now bears his name, he sighted 
land in 66° 40' and anchored in Exeter Sound. The 
hill above them they named Mount Raleigh ; the fore- 
land to the north, Cape Dyer ; and that to the south, 
Cape Walsingham — names which they still bear. The 
season was too far advanced for him to attempt to 
explore the sound, but he discovered the wealth of those 
regions in whales, seals, and deerskins — a discovery 
which, it need hardly be said, was very highly valued 
by the merchants who had equipped the expedition. 

As was only natural, both Davis and his patrons were 
anxious to continue the discoveries thus auspiciously 
begun, and May 7, 1586, saw him starting on his 
second expedition, his fleet strengthened by the addition 
of the Merzmade, a ship of 1 20 tons. She did not prove 
of very much service, however, for she deserted in lat. 
66°, and Davis went on his way without her. He did 
not succeed in adding anything of value to his dis- 
coveries of the previous year, merely coasting south- 
ward along Labrador, without observing the entrance 
to Hudson Strait. 

Davis's third expedition left on May 19, 1587, and 



io ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

consisted of three ships, the Elizabeth, the Sunshine, 
and the Ellen. On reaching lat. 6y° 40' he left two of 
his ships to prosecute fishing, and sailed on by himself 
on a voyage of discovery. He came, as he tells us 
himself, "to the lat. of 75 , in a great sea, free from ice, 
coasting the western shore of Desolation. . . . Then I 
departed from that coast, thinking to discover the north 
parts of America. And after I had sailed toward the 
west near forty leagues, I fell upon a great bank of 
ice. The wind being north, and blew much, I was 
constrained to coast towards the south, not seeing any 
shore west from me. Neither was there any ice towards 
the north, but a great sea, free, large, very salt and blue, 
and of an unsearchable depth. So coasting towards 
the south, I came to the place where I left the ships to 
fish, but found them not. Thus being forsaken and 
left in this distress, referring myself to the merciful 
providence of God, I shaped my course for England, 
and unhoped for of any, God alone relieving me, I 
arrived at Dartmouth. By this last discovery it seemed 
most manifest that the passage was free and without 
impediment toward the north ; but by reason of the 
Spanish fleet, and unfortunate time of Master Secre- 
tary's death, the voyage was omitted, and never since 
attempted." So ended the Arctic voyages of John 
Davis. "The discoveries which he made . . .," says 
Sir John Ross, "proved of great commercial import- 
ance ; since to him, more than to any preceding or 
subsequent navigator, has the whale fishery been 
indebted." 

In the meantime interest in the North-East Passage 
had by no means subsided ; indeed, it had actually 



EARLY VOYAGES n 

been quickened by Philip II.'s accession to the throne 
of Portugal and by the consequent fact that Spain and 
Portugal, not content with already holding the mono- 
poly of the route to the East, attempted to make their 
influence felt upon the trade operations of the nations 
of Northern Europe. It was in 1580 that Arthur Pet, 
in the George, and Charles Jackson, in the William, 
sailed from England under the auspices of the Muscovy 
Company, with instructions to push as far east as they 
possibly could. The expedition was singularly ill- 
found, for the burden of the George was only 40 tons, 
her crew consisting of nine men and a boy, while 
the William was but half the size of her sister ship, 
and carried a crew of five men and a boy. The adven- 
turers, however, made light of the difficulties that beset 
them, and, after making Nova Zembla in the neigh- 
bourhood of the South Goose Cape, they turned south 
and, coasting along Waigat Island, entered the mouth 
of the Pechora. Thence they pushed their way into 
the Kara Sea, being the first sailors from Western 
Europe who ever achieved such a feat. 

The Muscovy Company does not seem to have con- 
sidered it worth its while to proceed with the explora- 
tion of these unattractive regions, but the Dutch, who 
were no less anxious than the English to find a North- 
East Passage, sent out in 1594 an expedition which 
consisted of three ships, commanded by Willem 
Barents, Nay, and Tetgales. Barents attempted to find 
a passage round the north of Nova Zembla, while his 
companions turned south and made their way into the 
Kara Sea. The reports which these pioneers brought 
home with them so encouraged their fellow-countrymen, 



12 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

that they were sent off with a fleet of seven ships in 
the following year to continue their discoveries. This 
expedition penetrated a little further along the coast, 
but it by no means succeeded in fulfilling its mission, 
and the States-General became rather chary of spend- 
ing any more money upon the venture. Accordingly 
they contented themselves with offering a large reward 
to any person or persons who could find a practicable 
passage to China, and left it to private enterprise to 
do the rest. The result of this step was that a com- 
pany of merchants fitted out two ships of discovery in 
1596, and gave the command of one of them to John 
Cornelius Ryp and of the other to Heemskeerck, ap- 
pointing Barents chief pilot to the latter. On June 9 
they discovered an island which they called Bear 
Island, in memory of a terrific encounter that they 
had with a polar bear there. They now found that 
their progress eastwards was checked by ice, and they 
accordingly stood north, with the result that it fell to 
their lot to be the discoverers of Spitzbergen. They 
spent two days in a bay which appears to have been 
that known as Fair Haven, and then, after an ineffectual 
attempt to push further north, they returned to Bear 
Island, where, owing to a difference of opinion as to 
the best course to pursue, they parted company, Ryp 
revisiting the coast of Spitzbergen, while Barents set 
his course for Nova Zembla. We may mention paren- 
thetically that Heemskeerck was not himself a sailor, 
and that, in consequence, the lion's share of the honours 
which this expedition earned has always been given to 
Barents, on whom the navigation of the ship necessarily 
devolved. 



EARLY VOYAGES 13 

The rest of the story of this unfortunate voyage is 
one of terrible trials borne with heroic fortitude. 
While coasting along the shore of Nova Zembla, 
Barents suddenly found himself in the midst of heavy 
ice, and time after time his ship only just escaped 
destruction by the squeezing together of the floes. 
His duty to his employers always being uppermost in 
his mind, he bravely attempted to push on to the 
east, but he soon found that that was impossible, and 
that all his efforts must be directed towards getting his 
ship home. As he drew near the shore, however, in 
the hope of finding a little open water there, the ice 
bore down upon it, crushed his boats to pieces and 
almost annihilated his ship. To add to his misfortunes, 
a northerly gale arose, which placed him in an even 
more dangerous position than before. He now found 
himself to the east of the island in an inlet which he 
named Ice Haven, but which is now called Barents 
Bay, with his retreat cut off both to the north and to 
the south. There was nothing for him to do, therefore, 
but to make the most of an exceedingly bad business 
and spend the winter where he was. Now it must be 
remembered that no traveller had ever yet passed a 
winter in the Arctic regions, and that Barents and his 
men were totally unprepared for such an emergency. 
They had little food, less fuel, no proper clothes and, 
last but by no means least, their ship was not suited for 
a winter abode. In the midst of their misfortunes, 
however, they kept up their hearts, and instantly set 
about building a hut wherein they could spend the 
long, dark months. 

Fortunately for them there was an abundance of 



14 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

driftwood on the island "driven upon the shoare, 
either from Tartaria, Muscovia, or elsewhere, for 
there was none growing upon that land, wherewith, 
as if God had purposely sent them to us, we were 
much comforted." This driftwood lay at a distance 
of some eight miles from the site of this house, 
and the labour of fetching it was enhanced by the 
darkness which was now setting in, and by the 
ferocity of the bears which haunted the neighbour- 
hood and were a constant source of danger to the 
party. The Dutchmen, however, worked with a will, 
and by October 24 they had moved into their new 
abode, one of the features of which was a wine cask, 
with a square opening cut in its side, which was set 
up in a corner and used as a bath. 

The bears afforded them some fresh meat up till 
November 3, when they and the sun disappeared at 
one and the same time. After this they occasionally 
succeeded in trapping foxes, but the cold was so 
intense that they were often unable to venture out 
of the house for days together. " It blew so hard 
and snowed so fast," writes Gerrit de Veer, the 
chronicler of the expedition, "that we should have 
smothered if we had gone out into the air ; and to 
speake truth, it had not been possible for any man to 
have gone one ship's length, though his life had laine 
thereon ; for it was not possible for us to go out of 
the house. One of our men made a hole open at one 
of our doores . . . but found it so hard wether that 
he stayed not long, and told us that it had snowed so 
much that the snow lay higher than our house." Again, 
" It frose so hard that as we put a nayle into our mouths 



EARLY VOYAGES 15 

(as when men worke carpenter's worke they use to doe), 
there would ice hang thereon when we tooke it out 
againe, and made the blood follow." Or, " It was so 
extreme cold that the fire almost caste no heate ; for 
as we put our feete to the fire, we burnt our stockings 
before we could feele the heate. . . . And, which is 
more, if we had not sooner smelt than felt them, we 
should have burnt them quite away ere we had knowne 
it." De Veer also tells us that the clothes on the backs 
even of those who sat near the fire were frequently 
covered with hoar-frost, and that the beer and all the 
spirits were frozen solid. Yet in the midst of all 
this he was able to make the following entry in his 
journal : " We alwaies trusted in God that hee would 
deliver us from thence towards sommer time either 
one way or another. . . . We comforted each other 
giving God thanks that the hardest time of the winter 
was passed, being in good hope that we should live to 
talke of those things at home in our owne country." 
It was in this spirit of patient resignation that the 
brave Dutchmen met all their troubles. 

Even when the sun returned it brought them but 
little relief from their sufferings, for the intensity of the 
cold seemed to increase, and there was no hope that 
the ice in their harbour would break up early. The 
ship was so badly damaged that she could not survive 
the voyage home, so they set about repairing the boats 
as best they could, with a view to crossing in them the 
thousand miles of sea that lay between them and Lap- 
land. At last the time came for them to make their 
departure, but Barents was now so ill that he had to be 
taken to the boat on a sledge. His courage, however, 



1 6 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

was still indomitable, as this passage in De Veer's 
account shows : " Being at the Ice Point the maister 
called to William Barents to know how he did, and 
William Barents made answer and said, Quite well, 
mate. I still hope to be able to run before we get to 
Wardhuus. Then he spak to me and said : Gerrit, if 
we are near the Ice Point, just lift me up again. I must 
see that point once more." His courage, however, was 
greater than his strength, and on June 20, six days after 
the start, the end came. We quote our chronicler once 
more : " William Barents looked at my little chart, 
which I had made of our voyage, and we had some 
discussion about it ; at last he laid away the card and 
spak unto me saying, Gerrit, give me something to 
drink and he had no sooner drunke but he was taken 
with so sodain a qualme, that he turned his eies in his 
head and died presently. The death of William Barents 
put us in no small discomfort, as being the chief e guide 
and onely pilot on whom we reposed ourselves next 
under God ; but we could not strive against God, and 
therefore we must be content." 

The sufferings of the party of fifteen on their terrible 
voyage over the stormy and ice-laden sea were scarcely 
less terrible than those which they had endured on the 
island. Such was their courage and determination, 
however, that they at last reached Lapland in safety, 
where they had the satisfaction of finding Cornelius 
Ryp, on whose vessel they were conveyed back to 
Holland. 



CHAPTER II 

FROM HUDSON TO PHIPPS AND NELSON 

WITH the voyages of Weymouth, Knight, and 
Hall, which occupied the first few years of 
the seventeenth century, we need not concern ourselves 
at all, for they resulted in no discoveries of any im- 
portance. In the year 1607, however, Henry Hudson 
started off on the first of that series of travels by which 
his name became famous, and during the course of 
which he succeeded in carrying the British flag to 
places that had never before been trodden by the 
foot of civilised man. 

As has already been seen, the north-west and north- 
east passages to the Indies had been tried and found 
wanting. British merchants, however, were by no 
means disposed to let Spain and Portugal retain their 
lucrative monopoly without making a struggle to wrest 
it from them, so they determined to send out a fresh 
expedition which should attempt to force its way to 
the land of gems and spices over the North Pole itself. 
The command of this expedition was entrusted to 
Henry Hudson, a seaman of such daring and skill that 
he was well able to accomplish the work if it lay within 
the power of a human being to do so. Hudson started 
off from the Thames on May 1, 1607, in a small barque 
which was manned by ten men and a boy, and made 

B J 7 



1 8 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

direct for the east coast of Greenland. By June 22 he 
had reached lat. 72 38', where he discovered the land 
which still bears his name, the chief promontory of 
which he named Cape Hold-with-Hope. He then set 
his course for Spitzbergen, which, as we have seen, had 
been first sighted by Barents eleven years earlier, and 
there he reached the high latitude of 8o° 23'. His 
provisions being now nearly exhausted, he was obliged 
to return home. 

On his second voyage he attempted to discover a 
north-east passage round Nova Zembla, but was so 
hampered by ice that he was unable to proceed far on 
his way, while the only geographic result of his third 
voyage was the discovery of the Hudson River. These 
early expeditions, however, though they achieved little 
in the way of discovery, proved of great commercial 
value, for they gave rise to the great Spitzbergen whale 
fishery. 

Hudson's fourth and last voyage, that of 1610, was 
organised by Sir John Wolstenholm and Sir Dudley 
Digges, who were convinced of the existence of the 
North-West Passage, and felt that Hudson was the 
man to find it. Accordingly, Hudson sailed on 
April 17 in the Discovery, a ship of 55 tons, which 
was provisioned for six months. By June 9 he had 
reached Frobisher Strait, and here a contrary wind 
arose which compelled him to ply westward into 
Hudson's Bay. Several British seamen had already 
visited the mouth of the strait, and it is believed that 
Portuguese fishermen had actually entered the bay ; 
but the terrible circumstances which attended Hudson's 
voyage to it made it only natural that it should be 



FROM HUDSON TO NELSON 19 

named after him in commemoration of his achievements 
and his fate. 

The Discovery had penetrated the bay to a distance 
of over three hundred miles further than ever an 
English ship had penetrated it before when she was 
beset by ice, and all chance of retreat was cut off. As 
we have already seen, she was only provisioned for six 
months, and the unfortunate crew found themselves, in 
consequence, with starvation staring them in the face. 
Hudson, fortunately, was a man of resource, and he 
lost no time in organising hunting and fishing parties 
which provided his party with sufficient provisions to 
tide over the winter. Had his crew remained faithful 
to him all might have been well, but disaffection broke 
out early in the winter, which, gathering force as the 
store of provisions grew more and more scanty, broke 
out into open mutiny in the spring. The ringleaders 
were the former mate and boatswain, whom Hudson 
had been obliged to displace for using improper 
language, and a young man named Greene, a protege" 
of Hudson, who repaid his benefactor's kindness by 
deserting him when he most needed friends. These 
men, seeing that when the ship broke out of winter 
quarters in June there were barely fourteen days' pro- 
visions left for the whole crew, determined to place 
Hudson and eight other men in a boat, and, leaving 
them to shift for themselves, to sail home for England. 
This heartless plan was promptly carried into execu- 
tion. Hudson was seized and bound when he came 
out of his cabin, and with five sick men, John Hudson 
and John King, the carpenter, who bravely refused to 
join the mutineers, was thrown into a boat and 



2o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

deserted. Of the unfortunate castaways nothing more 
was ever heard, and the most careful search of Sir 
Thomas Button, who examined the whole of the 
western shore of the bay, failed to discover any clue to 
their fate. Of the mutineers, Greene and four others 
were killed in a fight with the natives, while the rest 
only just succeeded in reaching England. 

The voyages of Hall in 1612 and Gibbons in 1614 
did not result in much, but in 161 5 William Baffin 
started out on the first of his two expeditions which 
were destined to add so much to the world's store of 
knowledge of the Arctic seas. Baffin, who was described 
by Sherard Osborn as "the ablest, the prince of 
Arctic navigators," was in 161 5 appointed by the 
Merchants Adventurers pilot and associate to Richard 
Bylot, of the Discovery, which was now to make her 
fourth voyage in search of the North-West Passage. 
Making first for Hudson Strait, they soon discovered 
that they were being led into a blind alley. As the 
conditions, however, did not permit them to extend 
their voyage much that season, they were obliged to 
return home. In the following year, however, they 
were sent out once more by the Merchants Adven- 
turers, and on this occasion they determined to push 
on north along the coast of Greenland. On May 30 
they reached Sanderson's Hope, Davis's farthest point, 
and there they entered upon an entirely new field of 
discovery. With such energy did they apply them- 
selves to the work that they had crossed Melville Bay 
by the beginning of June, and were sailing merrily 
on their way past Cape York, Cape Dudley Digges, 
and Whale Sound. At last, when they had exceeded 



FROM HUDSON TO NELSON 21 

Davis's farthest north by over three hundred miles, 
their triumphant career was stopped at the entrance 
to Smith Sound, within sight of Cape Alexander. 
This latitude, 77° 45', remained unequalled for over 
two centuries. 

Unable to proceed any further to the north, Baffin 
and Bylot determined to sail south-west, and to see 
if they could not add to their growing list of dis- 
coveries on their homeward journey. Their hopes 
were amply fulfilled, for on July 12 they found them- 
selves off the entrance to Lancaster Sound, which was 
the gate, as it afterwards proved, to the North-West 
Passage. The ice, unfortunately, did not permit them 
to enter the Sound, so they made for the coast of 
Greenland, where they rested their men prior to their 
return to England. 

For the next hundred years or so very little was done 
in the way of Arctic discovery. A Dane of the name 
of Jens Munk started out to seek for the North- West 
Passage, and succeeded in making a few discoveries in 
Hudson's Bay. In 163 1, again, Captain Luke, alias 
" North- West," Fox sallied forth on the same mission, 
bearing with him an epistle from the King of England 
to the Emperor of Japan, which, however, remained un- 
delivered. The work which he did was not of much 
value, but he made up for this deficiency by writing a 
very humorous account of his experiences. Captain 
James, who went exploring in the same year, seems to 
have been dogged by ill-luck from the beginning to 
the end of his voyage, and Barrow describes his 
narrative of it as " a book of lamentation and weeping 
and great mourning." 



22 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Though, however, very little was done in the way of 
exploration during the second half of the seventeenth 
century, great strides were made in the development of 
the country already explored by the formation of the 
famous Hudson Bay Company, which for two hundred 
years did a tremendous trade in Northern Canada. The 
inception of this Company was mostly due to a certain 
French Canadian of the name of Grosseliez, who, after 
an ineffectual attempt to induce the French Govern- 
ment to consider his schemes for founding a great 
industry, came to England, where he obtained the ear 
of Prince Rupert. The Prince sailed for Hudson Bay 
with Grosseliez, saw the possibilities of the country, 
and obtained from King Charles a charter, dated 1669, 
which conferred on him and his associates, exclusively, 
all the trade, land, and territories in Hudson's Bay. 
The charter further ordained that they should use their 
best endeavours to find a passage to the South Sea, 
but the Company soon became so rich from its trade 
that it seems to have conveniently forgotten this 
clause. 

Occasionally, it is true, it attempted to do some- 
thing in the way of exploration, but these efforts were 
for the most part only half-hearted, and resulted in 
little. In 1719, for example, James Knight, allured by 
reports of mines of pure copper by a great river to the 
north, gave the Company to understand that he would 
call upon the authorities to examine their charter 
unless they arranged an expedition and appointed 
him its leader. 

Very reluctantly they consented to do as he wished, 
and equipped two ships for the purpose of surveying 



FROM HUDSON TO NELSON 23 

the northern coast of their territories. Not a single 
member of the expedition returned, and nothing was 
known of their fate until, forty years later, a quantity 
of wreckage was found on Marble Island. 

With the exception of Middleton's expedition of 
1741, during the course of which Wager Inlet, Repulse 
Bay, and Frozen Strait were discovered, nothing much 
more was done in the way of Arctic exploration for the 
next fifty years. In 1769, however, the Company 
determined to make another effort to find the mines 
of copper of which the natives brought so glowing an 
account, and with this end in view they sent out an 
overland expedition under the command of Samuel 
Hearne. This expedition, which started out in 
November, was a complete failure, because it began its 
work too late in the year, while the second expedition, 
which left in February, failed because the preparations 
were inadequate. Warned by these two experiences, 
Hearne sallied forth once more in December 1670, and 
on this occasion he claimed to have found the mouth 
of the Coppermine River. His observations, however, 
were rather hazy, and it is doubtful whether he really 
reached the Polar Sea. The end of his journey was 
marred by an unfortunate collision between his Indian 
guides and a tribe of Eskimos, during the course of 
which all the unfortunate natives were massacred. 
The effects of this incident were to be felt later 
on, when Franklin, visiting those inhospitable shores 
with his gallant companions, was regarded with such 
suspicion by the Eskimos that he could hardly obtain 
that assistance which he so sorely needed. 

One other early attempt to reach the Polar Sea 



24 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

by the land route deserves to be recorded : that of 
Alexander — afterwards Sir Alexander — Mackenzie, the 
discoverer of the river which bears his name. Having 
been led to believe by the accounts of Indians that 
the sea could be reached by a large river issuing from 
the Great Slave Lake, he determined to test the story 
himself, and set out on June 3, 1789. The difficulties 
in his way were innumerable, for not only was the 
river broken up by dangerous rapids, but it was only 
after infinite trouble that he could induce any guides to 
accompany him, for the natives believed the river to be 
peopled by monsters, who were ready to devour the 
unwary traveller without the least provocation. How- 
ever, he succeeded in reaching the sea near Whale 
Island, and had the satisfaction of knowing that the 
tales of the Indians were true, though he was unable to 
use his knowledge for any practical purpose. 

Meanwhile, Russia was busily opening up the north- 
east coast of Siberia, partly with a view to getting 
some control over the unmanageable Chukches, the 
only Siberian tribe who succeeded in resisting their 
somewhat rough and ready methods, and partly with a 
view to developing trade in that direction and to dis- 
covering whether or not the Asiatic and American 
continents were united. Many expeditions set out 
with these ends in view, among them being those of 
Ignatieff, Deshneff, Alexieff, and Ankudinoff, but of 
these it is impossible to give a detailed account here, 
and we need not take up the story of exploration in 
these regions until 1725, when the Great Northern 
Expedition, conceived by Peter the Great and carried 
into execution by the Empress Anne, set forth under 



FROM HUDSON TO NELSON 25 

the command of Vitus Bering, a Dane in the Russian 
service. 

Immense difficulties had to be overcome before the 
expedition could start at all. Long overland journeys 
had to be made across Siberia, supplies had to be 
accumulated at Okhotsk and a vessel had to be built 
there, with the result that it was not until the end of 
June, 1727, that Spanberg, Bering's assistant, was able 
to sail for Bolsheretsk in the Fortuna. Here more 
supplies had to be accumulated and a second ship 
built, which involved a delay of yet another year. At 
last, however, on July 24, 1728, Bering sailed gaily 
down the Kamchatka River, in the Gabriel, on his 
voyage of exploration. The preparations had extended 
over more than three years, and the voyage occupied 
about seven weeks, during which no discoveries what- 
ever were made, so that the game seems to have been 
hardly worth the rather expensive candle. During the 
following summer he sallied out of his harbour once 
more, but he does not seem to have prosecuted his 
work with very much ardour, for he returned at the 
end of three days, during which he had sailed about 
a hundred miles. He then made his way to St 
Petersburg. 

The Empress Anne seems to have been easily 
pleased, for although Bering had been away for five 
years and had accomplished nothing whatever, she 
gave orders that a second and even larger expedition 
should be placed under his command. The pre- 
parations for this voyage occupied some seven years, 
but at last, in September 1740, Bering was ready to 
start, and before winter closed in upon him he sue- 



26 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

ceeded in rounding Kamchatka and reaching Avatcha, 
now known as Petropaulovsk ; not a very remarkable 
voyage, perhaps, but a step in the right direction. 
There he spent the winter, and in June of the following 
year he started out in the St Peter, accompanied by 
the St Paul, under the command of Tschirikoff. Even 
now, however, he could not succeed in overcoming his 
passion for dawdling, and much valuable time was 
wasted in searching for the land of Gama, which, in 
point of fact, did not exist. At last, however, the two 
ships set their course north-east, and a few days later 
they parted company during a heavy fog. Both of 
them succeeded in making America, a feat, however, 
which had already been accomplished by Gwosdef 
during Bering's absence at St Petersburg. Tschirikoff 
made the American coast on July 26, and after some 
exciting experiences, during which two parties who 
were sent ashore to explore were completely lost, he 
returned in safety to Petropaulovsk. Bering, who 
reached America three days later than his companion, 
was less fortunate. Caught by contrary winds and 
heavy gales, his vessel was ultimately stranded on 
Bering Island, where she broke up. Her commander, 
utterly disheartened, refused to eat or drink or to take 
shelter in the hut which had been constructed of drift- 
wood, with the result that he died on December 19. 
The command of the party now devolved on 
Lieutenant Waxell, who, ably assisted by a brilliant 
young naturalist, named Steller, succeeded in bringing 
the party safely out of its quandary. Their stay on 
the island, though it was miserable in the extreme, 
had its compensations, for they found that the place 



FROM HUDSON TO NELSON 27 

abounded in the rare blue fox and the no less valuable 
sea-otter, of the skins of which the men secured such 
quantities that they took twenty thousand pounds' 
worth home to Russia. 

Bering did not succeed in discovering either the sea 
or the strait which have been named after him, but he 
mapped out a large tract of the Asiatic coast with 
some accuracy and opened up a trade which proved to 
be of immense value. 

Up to the middle of the second half of the eighteenth 
century the efforts of navigators had, for the most part, 
been directed to finding a passage to the Indies either 
by the north-western or by the north-eastern route. 
Robert Thorne, it is true, had come forward with a 
bold plan for attempting to sail across the North Pole, 
but he had not succeeded in getting very far on his 
way, and the idea had been allowed to lapse. In 1773, 
however, the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the 
Admiralty, having been approached upon the subject 
by the Royal Society, suggested to George III. that an 
expedition should be sent out to discover how far it 
was possible to sail in the direction of the Pole. The 
King was pleased with the idea, and preparations for 
the venture were at once set on foot. The Racehorse 
and the Carcase, two of the strongest ships of the day, 
were selected as being best suited for the purpose, and 
were fitted out as the ideas of the time dictated. The 
command was entrusted to Captain Constantine John 
Phipps, afterwards the second Lord Mulgrave, Captain 
Skiffington Lutwidge was appointed second in com- 
mand, two masters of Greenland ships were attached 
to the expedition as pilots, and an astronomer, with all 



28 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the latest instruments, was recommended by the Board 
of Longitude. 

So far as actual achievements were concerned, there 
is nothing much to be recorded. Phipps was unfortu- 
nate in his year, and north of Spitzbergen he found a 
solid wall of ice which it was quite impossible for him 
to penetrate. He had the satisfaction, however, of 
reaching lat. 8o° 48 N., a higher point than any of his 
predecessors. One episode deserves to be noticed as 
it came near causing the death of Nelson, who was 
serving in the humble capacity of captain's coxswain. 
"One night," says Southey, "during the mid -watch, 
he stole from the ship with one of his comrades, taking 
advantage of a rising fog, and set out over the ice in 
pursuit of a bear. It was not long before they were 
missed. The fog thickened, and Captain Lutwidge 
and his officers became exceedingly alarmed for his 
safety. Between three and four in the morning the 
weather cleared, and the two adventurers were seen, 
at a considerable distance from the ship, attacking a 
huge bear. The signal for them to return was im- 
mediately made ; Nelson's comrade called upon him to 
obey it, but in vain. His musket had flashed in the 
pan, their ammunition was expended, and a chasm in 
the ice, which divided him from the bear, probably 
preserved his life. ' Never mind,' he cried, ' do but let 
me get a blow at the devil with the butt-end of my 
musket, and we shall have him.' Captain Lutwidge, 
however, seeing his danger, fired a gun, which had the 
desired effect of frightening the beast ; and the boy 
then returned, somewhat afraid of the consequences of 
his trespass. The captain reprimanded him sternly 



FROM HUDSON TO NELSON 29 

for conduct so unworthy of the office which he filled, 
and desired to know what motive he could have for 
hunting a bear. • Sir,' said he, pouting his lip, as he 
was wont to do when agitated, ' I wished to kill the 
bear that I might carry the skin to my father.' " 

It was three years after the return of the Racehorse 
and Carcase that Captain Cook made his only expedi- 
tion into the Arctic seas. His success in the Antarctic 
had led his friends in England to hope great things of 
his voyage through the Bering Strait, but, unfortunately, 
his two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, proved 
but ill-adapted for service in the Arctic, and though he 
succeeded in charting a good deal of the unknown 
American coast, he made no approach to finding that 
North-West Passage for the discovery of which he had 
been set out. He had intended to return to the Arctic 
again with a view to prosecuting his discoveries there, 
but his death at Hawaii in 1779 prevented him from 
fulfilling his purpose, and his second in command, 
Captain Clerke, on whom the leadership of the ex- 
pedition devolved, died of consumption at Petro- 
paulovsk. 



CHAPTER III 

THE VOYAGE OF BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN 

WHAT with the American War and the 
Napoleonic Wars, our sailors had their hands 
so full at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning 
of the nineteenth centuries, that they had no time to 
spare for unnecessary exploration, and there is, in con- 
sequence, a hiatus of forty years in the story of Arctic 
discovery. In 1 8 1 7, however, Captain William Scoresby, 
junior, one of the most famous of Scotch whalers, re- 
ported to Sir Joseph Banks that he had found nearly 
2000 square leagues of the Spitzbergen Sea free from 
ice, and that he had, in consequence, been able to sight 
the eastern coast of Greenland, at a meridian usually 
considered inaccessible, adding that it would be greatly 
to the advantage of our whale fishery if expeditions 
were sent out to continue the work of exploration 
which had remained in abeyance for so long. Both 
Sir Joseph Banks and Sir John Barrow, then Secretary 
to the Admiralty, were much impressed by this report 
and it was through their representations that the 
Government decided to send out two expeditions in 
18 18, one of which was to make an effort to reach the 
Pole, while the other was to search for the elusive 
North- West Passage. The list of the officers of these 

two expeditions included six names which were des- 
30 



BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN 31 

tined to become famous all over the world for their 
Arctic work — those of Back, Beechey, Franklin, Parry, 
John Ross, and James C. Ross. 

The ships detailed for the first of these two expeditions 
were the Dorothea (370 tons) and the Trent (250 tons), 
two stout whalers which were specially strengthened 
for work in the ice with all the extra wood and 
iron that they could carry. They were provisioned for 
two years, and the leadership of the expedition was en- 
trusted to Captain Buchan, who sailed on the Dorothea, 
while Franklin commanded the Trent, with Beechey as 
his lieutenant. The object of the mission was scientific 
as well as geographical, and it was hoped that many 
useful investigations would be made into the atmo- 
spheric, meteorological, and magnetic phenomena of 
the unknown region which it was to traverse. 

The expedition sailed on April 25, the Arctic circle 
was crossed on May 18, and Bear Island sighted on the 
24th. Standing north for the south cape of Spitz- 
bergen, the ships met with their first serious opposition 
from the ice. They succeeded in making their way 
through the belt, however, and they were soon lying in 
Magdalena Bay. Further progress north was summarily 
checked by a vast field of ice through which it was 
impossible to penetrate, for the moment at any rate. 
Accordingly, Buchan decided to spend some time in 
exploring Magdalena Bay, in the hope that the con- 
ditions would change, and that he would be able to 
pass through it. His second venture, however, met 
with no better success. Indeed, disaster very nearly 
cut short the career of the two ships, for, while they 
were coasting along the pack, the breeze suddenly 



32 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

dropped, and they were driven by the swell into the 
midst of the innumerable floes which were constantly 
being dashed by the rollers against the main sheet of 
ice. So fierce was the impact of these floes that they 
were crumbled to pieces, and for miles around the sea 
was covered with a thick pasty substance, known as 
brash ice, which often extended to a depth of five feet. 

Fortunately, however, a breeze arose which carried 
them out of their dangerous predicament, and they were 
able to proceed on their way. Continuing their recon- 
naisance to the west, they found but little change in 
the condition of the pack, and they decided to desist 
for the present from their attempts to find a way 
through it. Accordingly they put about and made for 
Spitzbergen, where they found that the pack, though 
still impenetrable, had shifted a little, leaving a passage 
between it and the land. Rather unwisely, perhaps, 
Buchan attempted to make his way along this channel, 
and he had only just passed Red Cliff when the ice 
closed in upon him on every side, making it impossible 
for him either to advance or to retreat. 

Here they remained for thirteen days with little to 
do except to observe the habits of the animals which 
appeared on all sides, and to indulge in a little hunting 
when the opportunity offered. In this connection 
Beechey tells a rather interesting story illustrating the 
ingenuity of the Polar bear. " Bears, when hungry," he 
writes, " seem always on the watch for animals sleeping 
on the ice, and endeavour by stratagem to approach 
them unobserved : for, on the smallest disturbance, the 
animals dart through holes in the ice, which|they always 
take care to be near, and thus evade pursuit. One 



BUCHAN AND FRANKLIN 33 

sunshiny day a walrus, of nine or ten feet in length, rose 
in a pool of water not very far from us, and after looking 
round, drew his greasy carcase upon the ice, where he 
rolled about for a time, and at length laid himself down 
to sleep. A bear which had probably been observing 
his movements, crawled carefully upon the ice at the 
opposite side of the pool, and began to roll about also, 
but apparently more with design than amusement, as 
he progressively lessened the distance that intervened 
between him and his prey. The walrus, suspicious of 
his advances, drew himself up, preparatory to a pre- 
cipitate retreat into the water, in case of a nearer 
acquaintance with his playful but treacherous visitor; 
on which the bear was instantly motionless as if in the 
act of sleep, but after a time began to lick his paws 
and clean himself, and occasionally to encroach a little 
more on his intended prey. But even this artifice did 
not succeed ; the wary walrus was far too cunning to 
allow himself to be entrapped, and suddenly plunged 
in the pool." The bears, however, were not always so 
unlucky in their hunting, for in the stomach of one that 
they killed they found a Greenlander's garter. 

Walrus hunting also afforded them a little sport, and 
on one occasion the crew were so unwise as to attack a 
herd in the ordinary ship's boats. Immediately the 
walruses rose on all sides, and it was no easy matter to 
prevent them from staving in the sides of the boats 
with their tusks, or dragging them under water. " It 
was the opinion of our people," says Beechey, " that in 
this assault the walruses were led by one animal in 
particular, a much larger and more formidable beast 
than any of the others ; and they directed their efforts 
c 



34 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

more particularly towards him, but he withstood all the 
blows of their tomahawks without flinching, and his 
tough hide resisted the entry of the whale lances, which 
were, unfortunately, not very sharp, and soon bent 
double. The herd were so numerous, and their attacks 
so incessant, that there was not time to load a musket, 
which, indeed, was the only mode of seriously injuring 
them. The purser fortunately had his gun loaded, and 
the whole crew being now nearly exhausted with chop- 
ping and sticking at their assailants, he snatched it up, 
and thrusting the muzzle down the throat of the leader, 
fired into his body. The wound proved mortal, and the 
animal fell back amongst his companions, who imme- 
diately desisted from the attack, assembled round him, 
and in a moment quitted the boat, swimming away as 
hard as they could with their leader, whom they actually 
bore up with their tusks, and assiduously prevented 
from sinking." 

The release which they had been praying for came at 
last, but it brought little improvement to their position, 
for a terrific gale arose which drove both the ships into 
the pack, with the result that half the timbers of the 
Trent were strained, while the Dorothea was reduced to 
something little better than a wreck. To attempt any 
further exploration was hopeless, so they made for 
Spitzbergen, where they found a safe anchorage in 
South Gat. Here the vessels were put into a state of 
repair, the officers in the meantime exploring the 
part of the island on which they found themselves, 
and making observations. On August 30 they put 
to sea once more, and arrived safely in England on 
October 22. 



CHAPTER IV 

ROSS'S FAILURES AND PARRY'S SUCCESSES 

WHILE Buchan and Franklin were in difficulties 
in the ice off Spitzbergen, Ross and Parry 
with the Isabella (385 tons) and the Alexander (252 
tons) were searching the shores of Baffin's Bay for the 
North-West Passage. They had set sail from Lerwick 
on May 3, and by the end of June they were past 
Disco Island. Here, through the medium of John 
Sackheuse, their invaluable interpreter, they opened 
up very friendly relations with the natives, in whose 
honour they gave a ball, which afforded immense en- 
tertainment to all concerned. After this, progress 
became slower, for the sea was cumbered with ice, 
and the crew were compelled to adopt the tedious 
expedient of "tracking" the ship through it, that is 
to say, of going ashore with a rope and dragging her 
through the obstruction. At the end of July, however, 
Ross succeeded in reaching Melville Bay, which proved 
to be one of the most important discoveries of the 
voyage, for the sea was full of whales, and has proved 
a lucrative hunting-ground for whalers ever since. 

As they were nearing the northern shores of the 
Bay the voyage of the Isabella and the Alexander came 
near to being summarily ended by a terrific gale which 
drove the ice upon them in such quantities that they 



36 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

were almost overwhelmed by it. Fortunately they 
both survived, and shortly after the storm had sub- 
sided, a number of natives with dog-sleighs were seen 
in the distance. All attempts at enticing them nearer 
by means of presents proved vain, but eventually the 
interpreter, Sackheuse, succeeded in getting into com- 
munication with them. At first they were inclined to 
distrust the strangers, imagining that the ships were 
some kind of weird animals with wings which had 
come either from the sun or the moon, they could not 
be sure which, with the express object of doing them 
an injury. The misunderstanding, however, was event- 
ually cleared up, and they were induced to visit the 
ships, where everything that they saw was a source of 
infinite interest to them, with the exception of the 
ship's biscuit and salted meat, for which they expressed 
supreme disdain. 

Pressing on north, the explorers found the sea fairly 
clear of ice, and they soon passed Cape Dudley Digges, 
Wolstenholme Island and Whale Sound, none of which 
had been visited since Baffin's day, and which carto- 
graphers had thought fit to erase from the maps, 
believing that Baffin had been the victim of hallu- 
cinations. 

It was just after he had passed the Canary Islands that 
Ross made his first great mistake. It must be remem- 
bered in his extenuation that he was totally inexperi- 
enced in Arctic travel, and that he was unused to the 
strange atmospheric phenomena and illusions which 
meet the voyager in these regions at every turn. Even 
in the short period of his stay in the Polar seas, how- 
ever, he ought to have learnt enough to prevent him 



FAILURES AND SUCCESSES 37 

from being beguiled into the belief that Smith's Sound 
was nothing but a bay headed by a huge range of im- 
penetrable mountains. That, however, was the con- 
clusion to which he came, and he made no effort to 
push further north than the entrance to the Sound. 
Had he done so he would, of course, have found that 
his mountains were nothing but weather-gleam. 

He now put about and pushed south, taking very 
accurate bearings of the various headlands which he 
passed. In the course of his voyage he came upon the 
entrances to Jones and Lancaster Sounds, both of 
which he was deterred from exploring by more ranges 
of impenetrable mountains, through which, however, 
his own lieutenant, Parry, sailed with perfect ease in 
the following year. 

He reached Grimsby on November 14, meeting with 
no adventures worth recording on the way home. His 
voyage had two great results. It opened up an enor- 
mous and most lucrative whale fishery in and around 
Melville Bay, and it vindicated Baffin's position as an 
explorer. Otherwise it was a little disappointing, for 
if he had not been so obsessed with the idea that 
mountains hemmed him in on every side, he might 
have accomplished much more than he actually 
achieved. 

In the narrative of his voyage, which he published 
after his return, Ross distinctly implies that his opinion 
as to the impossibility of finding a passage through 
any one of these three sounds was shared by the rest 
of his officers. This, however, appears to have been 
very far from the truth, as Parry's journals and letters 
attest. At the time when the two vessels were cruising 



38 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

about in the mouth of Lancaster Sound they were 
some three miles apart, the Isabella being in advance. 
When the Isabella put about, the crew of the Alexander 
were positively amazed, for so far as they could discern, 
there was no land anywhere in sight. 

The Admiralty seems to have had some inkling of 
the truth, for shortly after their return, Parry and 
Franklin were summoned into the presence of Lord 
Melville, and they gathered from the words that he let 
fall that he was of opinion that Lancaster Sound was 
a passage leading into some sea to the westward, an 
opinion which they heartily endorsed. The result was 
that, when it was decided to send out another expedi- 
tion in the following spring, Parry was offered the 
command. This expedition was to consist of two ships, 
the Hecla> a bomb of 375 tons, and the Griper, a gun- 
boat of 1 80 tons. Both of these ships were selected by 
Parry before he knew that he was to be placed in com- 
mand, and it was under his supervision that they were 
put in thorough repair, and specially strengthened for 
work in the Arctic regions. Parry himself was to com- 
mand the Hecla, while the Griper was to be entrusted 
to Lieutenant Liddon. The full complement of both 
ships was ninety-four, and the Admiralty had no diffi- 
culty in finding excellent seamen, for they offered 
double pay to all those who took part in the expedi- 
tion. Captain Sabine, whose name subsequently be- 
came famous for his excellent scientific work, was 
appointed naturalist and astronomer, and among the 
officers were Lieutenants Beechey and Hoppner. The 
object of the mission, as stated in the Admiralty in- 
structions, was to seek out a north-west passage from 



FAILURES AND SUCCESSES 39 

the Atlantic to the Pacific either through Lancaster, 
Jones or Smith Sounds. 

The ships weighed anchor on May 5, 18 19, and at 
first progress was slow, for the Griper proved such a 
bad sailor that the Hecla had to take her in tow. On 
the 23rd they sighted the ice of Davis Strait, and for a 
while they were obliged to bear to the eastward of it 
owing to its thickness. On July 21, however, Parry 
was able to set his course westwards, and eight days 
later they sighted the mountains at the southern en- 
trance of Lancaster Sound. 

Parry unquestionably had excellent luck at this 
part of his voyage. A good easterly breeze sprang 
up and the ships bowled merrily along under all the 
sail that they could carry. The sea was practically 
open, no land could be seen ahead, and the shores of 
the sound were thirteen leagues apart. The one 
and only drawback was the poor sailing powers of 
the Griper. 

At midnight on August 4 the sun being then, of 
course, as bright as at midday, they reached long. 90, 
and here they were pulled up by a barrier of ice that 
stretched from shore to shore. The part of the sound in 
which he now found himself Parry named Barrow 
Strait, while to two islands which lay ahead of him he 
gave the names of Leopold Islands, after Prince Leopold 
of Saxe-Coburg. To the westward of the islands he 
perceived a bright light in the sky which is known to 
Arctic sailors as " ice-blink " and which told him that 
there was no chance of a passage in that direction ; to 
the south of him, however, there was a broad open space 
and over it was a dark water-sky, so he determined that, 



40 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

as he could not push forward for the present, he would 
set his course southward. 

The wind was favourable and the ships soon found 
themselves bowling along down an inlet at least ten 
leagues broad at the mouth, to which Parry subsequently 
gave the name of Prince Regent's Inlet. He explored 
this inlet for about 120 miles in the hope that he might 
find a passage leading westward but in this he was 
disappointed, and perceiving presently that icebergs 
covered the whole of the westerly horizon, he put about, 
and on the 13th was once more off Leopold Islands. 
The sea was still covered with ice, but in a few days 
this obstruction had cleared away completely and he 
was able to make his way along the coast of North 
Devon. 

The question of the continuity of land to the north 
had for some time been worrying Parry, for there was a 
possibility that it might take a turn to the south and 
join the coast of America. Presently, however, his eyes 
were gladdened by the sight of a broad passage leading 
to the north through which he hoped that he would be 
able to sail if it proved impossible for him to make his 
way further westward, and to which he gave the name 
of Wellington Channel. There was no necessity, how- 
ever, to explore it yet, for their way was still open 
before them, and they sailed merrily along passing and 
naming, of course, at the same time, Cornwallis, 
Griffith and Bathurst Islands. Towards the end of 
August, however, the sea began to fill with ice, and 
Parry saw that it was high time for him to begin to 
look for winter quarters. These he eventually found in 
Hecla and Griper Bay, on the coast of Melville Island, 



FAILURES AND SUCCESSES 41 

and here the ships were made snug for the winter, though 
not until after the expedition had had the satisfaction 
of crossing the meridian no° W., thus earning the 
reward of ,£5000 offered by the Government to the first 
British subject who should penetrate so far within the 
Arctic circle. They found that they were none too 
soon, for the bay, when they reached it, was already 
covered with a coating of ice, through which they had 
to carve a way for the ship with saws. 

The work of putting the ships in order for the winter 
was instantly begun. The upper masts were dismantled, 
the lower yards were lashed fore and aft amidships and 
a roofing erected over the deck in order that the men 
might have a fairly warm house in which to take exer- 
cise when the rigours of the winter made it impossible 
for them to venture ashore. The question of how to 
provide his crew with that rational amusement which 
was absolutely necessary for them if they were to re- 
main in good health next occupied Parry's attention. 
He was himself an excellent amateur actor, and as 
there were a couple of books of plays on board, he 
promptly founded the Royal Arctic Theatre. The 
scene-painting and rehearsals kept officers and men 
occupied for weeks, and on November 5, the theatrical 
season opened with a brillant performance of " Miss 
in her 'teens," with Parry as Fribble, and Beechey 
as Miss Biddy. 

At the same time, Sabine founded a weekly paper 
entitled the North Georgia Gazette and Winter Chronicle ', 
to which most of the officers became regular contributors. 
Parry suddenly displayed poetic gifts of which he had 
never before been suspected, Sabine showed a perfect 



42 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

genius for dramatic criticism, while humorists galore 
sprang into being. 

One or two extracts from the Gazette may here be 
quoted. In the issue of November 29, for example, we 
find an advertisement for " a middle-aged woman, not 
above thirty, of good character, to assist in DRESSING 
the LADIES at the THEATRE. Her salary will be hand- 
some and she will be allowed tea and small beer into 
the bargain." This drew forth a reply from Mrs 
Abigail Handicraft, who wrote as follows : " I am a 
widow, twenty-six years of age, and can produce 
undeniable testimonials of my character and qualifi- 
cations ; but before I undertake the business of dressing 
the ladies at the theatre, I wish to be informed whether 
it is customary for them to keep on their breeches ; 
also if I may be allowed two or three of the stoutest 
able-seamen or marines, to lace their stays." From the 
following issue we learn that Mrs Handicraft was duly 
engaged and that she was granted her two assistants 
who were to be equipped with " marline-spikes, levers, 
and white-line " for the reduction of Beechey's waist to 
more reasonable proportions. 

The theatricals, though they provided great amuse- 
ment for the crew, were often conducted under great 
difficulties, for the temperature on the stage sometimes 
sank below zero, and on one occasion Captain Lyon, 
when playing in "The Heir-at-Law" had to go through 
the last act with two of his fingers frost-bitten. 

At the beginning of February the sun returned once 
more, but it brought with it very little improvement 
in the temperature, and the thermometer sometimes 
sank as low as 55 below zero. Several of the men 




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FAILURES AND SUCCESSES 43 

were badly frost-bitten, notably Smith, Sabine's servant, 
who, in his anxiety to save the dipping needle from a 
fire which broke out in the observatory, ran out without 
putting on his gloves. As soon as he returned to the 
ship, the surgeon plunged his hands into a basin of 
icy water, the surface of which was immediately frozen 
by the cold thus communicated to it. 

During the latter part of the winter some exceed- 
ingly beautiful atmospheric phenomena were seen. On 
March 4, for example, a halo appeared round the sun, 
consisting of a circle which glowed with prismatic 
colours. "Three parhelia, -or mock suns, were dis- 
tinctly seen upon this circle ; the first being directly 
over the sun and one on each side of it, at its own 
altitude. The prismatic tints were much more brilliant 
in the parhelia than in any other part of the circle; 
but red, yellow and blue were the only colours which 
could be traced, the first of these being invariably next 
the sun in all the phenomena of this kind observed. 
From the sun itself, several rays of white light, con- 
tinuous but not very brilliant, extended in various direc- 
tions beyond the halo, and these rays were more bright 
after passing through the circle than within it. This 
singular phenomenon remained visible nearly two 
hours." 

On March 19 the theatrical season came to an end 
with performances of "The Citizen" and "The Mayor of 
Garratt," in which Parry took the parts of old Philpot 
and Matthew Mug. The severest part of the winter 
was now over, but the ice showed as yet no signs of 
breaking up. Indeed, though a great deal of the snow 
melted during April and May, there seemed to be no 



44 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

chance either of continuing the voyage or of returning 
to England. June passed, and brought no prospect of 
release, and Parry began to fear that he was doomed 
to spend another winter in the ice, an eventuality 
for which he was but ill prepared. Towards the end 
of July, however, the thaw began to have its effect 
upon the ice of the harbour, and on August i the two 
ships were able to weigh anchor and sail out of the bay. 
They were not destined, however, to achieve much 
more. For several weeks they were checked by con- 
trary winds and battered by the ice, till at last, on 
August 23, Parry decided that, as the season for naviga- 
tion would be coming to an end in a fortnight, he had 
better return to England. This he accordingly pro- 
ceeded to do, and the two ships reached Peterhead in 
safety on October 29. 



CHAPTER V 

FRANKLIN'S FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 

IT is now necessary to return to Parry's friend and 
fellow explorer, John Franklin, who, it will be 
remembered, was summoned into Lord Melville's 
presence with Parry on November 18, 1818. The 
results of this interview were that while Parry was 
appointed to the command of the Hecla and Griper, 
Franklin was commissioned to undertake the no less 
important overland expedition to explore the shores of 
the North American continent from the mouth of the 
Coppermine River eastward. 

The members of this expedition were five in number, 
and consisted of Franklin himself, Dr John Richardson, 
a surgeon in the navy, George Back, who had sailed as 
mate in the Trent with Franklin in 181 8, Robert Hood, 
a midshipman, and John Hepburn, a sailor who was to 
act as servant. The object was to survey the coast 
carefully, to place conspicuous marks at the points at 
which ships might enter, and to deposit such informa- 
tion as to the nature of the coast as might be of service 
to Parry if he should actually succeed in finding a 
north-west passage. Franklin was also to conduct a 
series of scientific observations, making careful notes 
of the changes in the temperature, the state of the 
wind and weather, the dip and variation of the 
magnetic needle, and the intensity of the magnetic 

45 



46 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

force. In order that his chance of success might be 
as great as possible, he was provided with letters of 
recommendation from the Governors of the two great 
fur-trading companies of British North America — the 
Hudson's Bay Company and the North-West Com- 
pany — in which the agents were ordered to do their 
utmost, by every means and in every way, to forward 
the interests of the expedition. 

Franklin's first care on reaching Hudson's Bay was 
to proceed to York Factory, where he consulted a 
number of officials, among them being Mr Williams, 
the Governor of the Factory, as to the best way of 
reaching the mouth of the Coppermine, where, of 
course, the serious work of his expedition was to 
begin. They were decidedly of opinion that he should 
proceed to Cumberland House, and thence travel north- 
wards along the chain of the Company's posts to the 
Great Slave Lake. 

This route is practically a water-way, though the 
portages separating the various streams and lakes of 
which it is composed are almost numberless. Mr 
Williams, therefore, offered to provide the expedition 
with one of the Company's best boats, together with a 
large store of provisions and the other things neces- 
sary for the journey, an offer which, needless to say, 
was promptly accepted. Unfortunately, when these 
stores were brought down to the beach they were 
found to be of too great a bulk to be accommodated in 
the boat, so that a large portion of them, including the 
bacon and part of the rice, flour, ammunition, and 
tobacco, had to be left behind, the Governor promising 
to send them on during the next season. 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 47 

They set out on September 9, and they found that, 
though their journey took them through very beautiful 
scenery, it was of the most arduous description. The 
rivers were narrow, winding, and full of rapids, while 
the current was frequently so swift that the use of sails 
or oars was out of the question, and the boat had to be 
towed, a method of progression which would have been 
pleasant enough had not the shores been lofty and 
rocky and intersected by ravines and tributary streams. 
In addition to this, there were the innumerable portages 
to be reckoned with, and their progress was in con- 
sequence slow in the extreme. 

At last they reached Rock House, one of the posts 
of the Hudson's Bay Company, and there they were 
informed that still worse rapids lay before them, and 
that the boat must be lightened if they were to reach 
Cumberland House before the winter set in. franklin 
was therefore obliged to leave still more of his cargo 
there, with orders for it to be forwarded by the 
Athabasca canoes as early in the following season as 
possible. 

Proceeding on their way, they reached Cumberland 
House on October 23, and here they found the ice 
already forming on the lake, and learnt that it would 
be impossible for them to travel any further that 
season. Accordingly, when Governor Williams arrived 
a few days later and suggested that they should all 
winter at Cumberland House, they gladly fell in with 
the idea. On talking matters over, however, with the 
officers of the two great Companies, both of which had 
posts on the lake, Franklin came to the conclusion 
that by far his best plan would be to push on overland 



48 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

during the winter into the Athabasca Department, 
where alone he could obtain the guides, hunters, and 
interpreters necessary for the success of his expedition. 
Accordingly, he requested Mr Williams to provide him 
with dogs, sledges, and drivers for the conveyance of 
himself and his two companions, Back and Hepburn. 
They started on January 18, 1820, and after a most 
unpleasant journey of 857 miles, in cold so intense that 
newly-made tea used to freeze in the tin pots before 
they had time to drink it, they reached Fort Chepewyan, 
on Athabasca Lake, on March 26. There Franklin 
spent several months, picking up such information as 
he could concerning the course of the Coppermine 
River and the coast about its mouth from the Indians 
and interpreters of the two Companies. The results of 
his investigations were fairly satisfactory, and he 
decided to send messages to the Companies' represen- 
tatives on the Great Slave Lake, asking them to 
provide him with any knowledge that they could 
collect, and to engage a number of Copper Indians as 
guides and hunters. 

On May 10 mosquitoes, these early harbingers of 
spring, put in an appearance, and Franklin realised 
that the time was approaching for him to make a move 
onwards. It was no easy matter, however, to obtain 
the stores and men that he needed. The provisions 
collected at the Fort were not much in excess of the 
actual needs of the inhabitants, while the employees of 
the Company were very unwilling to engage with his 
expedition except at an extortionate remuneration. 

On July 13 Richardson and Hood arrived upon the 
scene, bringing with them all the provisions that they 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 49 

had been able to collect at Cumberland House and Isle 
a la Crosse. These, however, did not amount to much 
as the Canadian voyagers belonging to the Hudson's 
Bay post had eaten all the pemmican intended for the 
explorers, while ten of the bags of provisions which 
they had secured at the latter post proved so mouldy 
that they had to be thrown away. Consequently the 
travellers were obliged to start out very badly equipped 
in the matter of supplies. There was, however, no 
possibility of delaying their departure, as Fort 
Chipewyan did not at the time afford sufficient 
means of subsistence for so large a party. Accord- 
ingly, the stores were distributed among the three 
canoes with which Franklin had been furnished, and 
on July 18 he set forth on his way with his party, 
which now consisted of four officers, sixteen Canadian 
voyagers, two interpreters, and the redoubtable Hep- 
burn. 

At the end of the month they reached Fort Pro- 
vidence, where they were met by Mr Wentzel, an 
agent of the North- West Company, who proposed to 
engage hunters for them, and who was himself to 
accompany them to the Coppermine River. Negotia- 
tions with a party of hunters under one Akaitcho, or 
Big Foot, were soon satisfactorily completed, and 
though the Indians were a little disappointed at 
learning that the great English medicine men were 
unable to bring certain dead members of their tribe to 
life again, a rumoured accomplishment of their new 
friends on which they had founded great hopes, they 
were soon won over by sundry cheap medals and 
other small presents, and promised to work heart and 



50 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

soul for the good of the expedition. On August 2 the 
party set forth, now slightly augmented by an extra 
interpreter, Michel, an Iroquois, Mr Wentzel and the 
womankind of three of the voyagers who were to 
make shoes and clothes for the men while they were in 
winter quarters. On August 19 they reached the spot 
on which the Indians had settled as most suitable for 
the winter establishment. 

There was now every sign that winter would be on 
them before long, so Franklin set his men to work on 
the building of the store house, and sent out his Indian 
hunters to obtain all the fresh meat that they could. 
The hunters, however, proved but broken reeds. 
During the expedition Akaitcho heard of the death of 
his brother-in-law, and his whole party was, appar- 
ently, so overcome by the sad news that they spent 
several days in wailing and lamentations, with the result 
they only succeeded in killing fifteen deer. More- 
over, this family bereavement necessitated the removal 
of another portion of Akaitcho's tribe, which was to 
have stored up provisions on the bank of the Copper- 
mine, to a place miles away from the proposed route. 

To complete Franklin's discomfiture, Akaitcho ab- 
solutely refused to accompany him on a preliminary 
excursion to the Coppermine, saying that at that time 
of the year such a journey would be hazardous in the 
extreme. After painting its horrors and dangers in 
highly picturesque language, he further fulfilled his 
role of Job's comforter by saying that if Franklin were 
really bent upon the trip it was, of course, the duty of 
the Indians to render him all the help that they could. 
He would, therefore, allow some of the younger members 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 51 

of his tribe to accompany him, adding that from the 
moment that they set forth he and his relatives would 
mourn them as dead. In spite of Akaitcho's pessi- 
mism, however, the expedition returned without losing 
a single one of its members, and the Indian's lamenta- 
tions were entirely wasted. 

By October 20 the house was completed and the 
party moved in. It was a log building, 50 feet long 
and 24 feet wide, consisting of a hall, three bedrooms, 
and a kitchen. It was not exactly impervious to the 
cold winds, for the clay with which the walls were 
daubed cracked as it was put on and admitted the air 
freely ; compared with the tents, however, it was 
luxurious. The weather was now bitter, and hunting 
was over for the season. The store-house was fairly 
well stocked, while the carcases of eighty deer were 
stowed away at various distances from the house en 
cache, that is to say, covered with heavy loads of wood 
and stones so that the wolves and wolverines could not 
get at them. Franklin, however, was growing very 
uneasy at the shortage of ammunition and tobacco. 
The former was, of course, absolutely necessary for the 
bare existence of the party, while the Canadians, who 
were great smokers, had stipulated for a liberal supply 
of the latter. The officials of the two companies, how- 
ever, had not fufilled their promises, and had failed to 
forward the stores with which they had pledged them- 
selves to provide him. The only possible solution to the 
difficulty was to send some members of the party back 
for the supplies, and accordingly, on October 18, Back 
and Wentzel, with two Indians and two Canadians, set 
out on the long journey to Fort Providence. 



52 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

The first detachment of this party returned on 
December 23, but the last did not put in an appearance 
till the middle of March, after travelling over 1000 
miles on foot. Some idea of the difficulties which 
Back encountered may be gathered from the facts that 
he frequently passed two or three days without taking 
food, and that he was obliged to sleep in the woods 
with no other covering than a blanket and a deerskin, 
while the thermometer stood at 40 and once at $J° 
below zero. He had found that the supplies had not 
been forwarded simply through the gross neglect of 
some of the officials of the two trading companies. 
One of the Hudson's Bay officers, for example, being 
indisposed to burden his canoe with the stores which 
had been entrusted to his care, had incontinently 
heaped them up on the shore and left them there, quite 
regardless of the sufferings that this action was likely 
to bring upon the expedition. Eventually, however, 
sufficient supplies reached the party to place them 
beyond the danger of immediate want. 

The chief work of the expedition was to begin in 
June, and on the 4th the first party, under Dr Richard- 
son, sallied forth from Fort Enterprise, taking the land 
route northward. Ten days later a second party started 
with two canoes laid on trains, intending to strike the 
water at Winter Lake, which was not far distant. They 
were followed almost immediately by the third party, 
under Franklin, which brought with it the instruments, 
the remainder of the stores, and a small stock of dried 
meat. The fates seemed to be against the expedition 
from the very start, for when Franklin came up with 
the canoe party at Martin Lake, he found that the 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 53 

hunters had only killed two deer, and that though 
these had been placed en cache, they had both been 
consumed by wolverines. Worse still, when he joined 
Richardson on the 21st he learned that Akaitcho and 
his son had expended all their ammunition and had 
nothing whatever to show for it. The doctor, assisted 
by his two hunters, had fortunately been able to secure 
and prepare 200 lbs. of dried meat, but this constituted 
practically all the stores they had for their long journey. 

By July 12 they had reached the boundaries of the 
Eskimo territory, and the Indians, who were at 
constant war with these natives, refused point blank to 
go any further ; so all that Franklin could do was to 
dismiss them, after extracting from them a solemn 
promise to lay in a good stock of provisions at Fort 
Enterprise against their return. A few hours later the 
sea was reached, and here Franklin parted with Wentzel 
and two of the Canadians, thus reducing his party to 
twenty men. His plan was to explore the coast as far 
east of the Coppermine as possible. If the conditions 
allowed he would return to the river; if not, he 
intended to strike north across a rocky desert known 
as the Barren Grounds, and to make for Fort Enter- 
prise. Wentzel was requested to see that an ample 
supply of meat was provided at the fort for the party 
on its return. 

The band of twenty now found themselves at the 
mouth of the Coppermine, 334 miles from their head- 
quarters, with only sufficient provisions for fifteen days. 
On July 21 they launched their two frail canoes and 
set out upon the eastward voyage. It is scarcely 
necessary for us to concern ourselves with the details 



54 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

of this trip. That it was dangerous goes without say- 
ing, for the thin sides of their vessels afforded but the 
most inadequate protection against the masses of ice 
which they were constantly encountering. For five 
weeks, however, they pressed onwards, taking ob- 
servations and naming all the principal capes, islands, 
and bays for 650 miles along the coast. It was on 
August 16 when they had reached Point Turnagain, lat. 
68° 18' N. long. 109 25' W., that Franklin determined 
that it was time to put about. The open season 
was wearing on, the canoes were in a terrible state of 
disrepair, and the shortage of provisions was such as to 
cause serious anxiety. During the earlier part of the 
voyage the interpreters, St Germain and Adam, had 
been very successful with the gun, but their bags were 
growing smaller by degrees and beautifully less, the 
fact of the matter being, of course, that they had 
always regarded the expedition with strong disapproval 
and were anxious to compel it to return. 

Consequently the canoes put about, and, after a 
most perilous journey, they entered Hood's River on 
August 25. The river, unfortunately, was too shallow 
and swift to allow them to proceed further by water, 
so Franklin took his canoes to pieces and constructed 
out of the materials two smaller canoes, each of them 
easily portable. By the last day of the month these 
preparations were completed, and the impedimenta, 
which consisted of ammunition, nets, hatchets, ice- 
chisels, astronomical instruments, three kettles, two 
canoes, and a tent, were divided up among the mem- 
bers of the party, each of whom had to carry a burden 
of about ninety pounds. 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 55 

For the first few days of their journey they followed 
the course of the Hood, but soon the river curved west- 
ward and it was found necessary to strike inland across 
the desolate Barren Grounds, whose only recommenda- 
tion was that they were comparatively flat, and that the 
heavily burdened party was spared the necessity of 
stumbling up hills and down valleys such as lined the 
course of the stream. Apart from this, the land over 
which they had to journey was as unattractive as could 
well be imagined. For miles and miles ahead and on 
either side of them stretched a vast, stony waste, on 
which not a trace of a living creature was to be seen. 
Of vegetation there was little or none, wood was 
conspicuous by its absence, and it was only on 
the rarest occasions that they were able to indulge 
in the luxury of a fire. The prospect was truly most 
uninviting. 

They had only been a single day on their journey 
across this forbidding country when the terrible truth 
dawned upon them that the winter had set in unusually 
early, and that their dangers and sufferings were, in 
consequence, to be increased a hundredfold. The first 
news of this was brought to them by a terrible gale 
which arose in the night, and continued to blow with 
such violence that it was useless for them to attempt 
to fight against it, and they had no choice but to 
remain in their tents. For two days they lay in their 
blankets, shivering with the cold and with the pangs of 
hunger gnawing at them, for their provisions were now 
well nigh exhausted, and they had little left but some 
portable soup and arrowroot, which they were obliged 
to husband with the utmost care. By the morning of 



56 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the 7th the gale had abated but little, and the cold was 
still intense. However, they had to choose between 
two alternatives. Either they must push on in the 
teeth of the hurricane, or they must be frozen to death 
where they lay, and the former naturally seemed pre- 
ferable. Heavily laden as they were, in the most 
favourable circumstances they could only march at the 
rate of a mile an hour, but now their progress was 
infinitely slower, for the ground was covered a foot 
deep with snow, and the marshes and swamps were 
crusted with a thin coating of ice which frequently 
gave way beneath them. 

The storm was still raging so violently that the 
Canadians, who took it in turn to carry the boats, were 
often blown down, and the larger of the two boats was 
soon smashed to pieces. From what Franklin knew 
of the character of the voyagers he was inclined to 
believe that the accident was by no means a mere 
misadventure, but that the canoe had been broken 
purposely to save the labour of further trans- 
portation. However, he could only make the best 
of a bad business, so he built a fire of the frag- 
ments, and over it he cooked the last of his arrowroot 
and soup. 

So for many tedious days they plodded wearily on, 
subsisting as best they could upon an occasional part- 
ridge and a species of edible lichen called tripe de rocke, 
which grew upon the boulders — a poor sustenance for 
twenty starving men. The lichen, moreover, though 
it allayed the pangs of hunger for a while, was ex- 
ceedingly bitter to the palate and positively noxious 
to several members of the hapless party. 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 57 

Their physical sufferings grew more and more 
terrible every day. Hunger was not the only hard- 
ship with which they had to contend, for their course 
was constantly intersected by swamps through which 
they had to wade, and, as the thermometer was always 
below freezing point, their wet clothes were instantly 
frozen as stiff as boards, making walking more painful 
than ever. Once or twice they were fortunate enough 
to fall in with a herd of musk-oxen or a stray deer, but 
the supply was totally inadequate to the demand, and 
for the most part they were obliged to subsist on tripe 
de roche, which hardly a single member of the little 
band could now eat without becoming ill. On Sep- 
tember 10 they came upon a large lake, and Franklin's 
drooping hopes were revived by the prospect of being 
able to supplement his provisions with a supply of 
fish. To his dismay, however, he now learnt that the 
Canadians, with criminal selfishness, had thrown away 
the nets and burnt the floats in order to decrease the 
burdens which they had to carry, an action which was 
all the more amazing seeing that, in their capacity of 
voyagers to the trading companies, they frequently 
found themselves in situations where they were 
obliged to depend on fishing for their means of 
subsistence. 

These Canadians, however, with the exception of 
a man named Perrault, proved a terrible thorn in 
Franklin's side from the beginning to the end of the 
journey. They committed their crowning act of folly 
when they destroyed the second canoe, which, though 
very crazy, was the sole means of transport across the 
rivers and lakes. This loss was most seriously felt 



58 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

when, a little later, the party came to the bank of the 
Coppermine and found themselves unable to reach the 
other side. Precious days were wasted in attempting 
to construct a raft or to find a ford, during which time 
they were obliged to live on the putrid carcase of a 
deer that had fallen into a cleft in a rock in the 
previous spring. Rafts and fords failing, Richardson 
made a gallant effort to swim the river with a line 
round his waist, and, in spite of the numbing cold of 
the water, he almost reached the other side. Then his 
strength failed him and he came within an ace of 
being drowned. He was dragged ashore just in time 
to save his life, but he felt the effects of his adventure 
till late in the following spring. At last, after repeated 
attempts, the whole party succeeded in crossing in a 
canoe made of the painted canvas in which they had 
wrapped their bedding, but the vessel was so frail that 
it could only carry one person at a time. 

Back and three of the Canadians now went on ahead 
to search for the Indians and to see that everything 
was in readiness at the Fort. For another day the rest 
of the party struggled on, gaining what sustenance they 
could from the lichen and their old shoes. It soon 
became evident, however, that Hood and two of the 
Canadians, Credit and Vaillant, were growing so weak 
that they could march no further, and it was decided 
that the party must split up once more, and that the 
weaker members must remain behind with Richardson 
and Hepburn to attend to them, while Franklin and a 
few companions pushed on to the Fort. In the course 
of the following day a small thicket of willows was 
reached, and here it was decided to form the encamp- 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 59 

ment. The Canadians, however, had not been able to 
struggle even that far, and had been left behind in the 
snow. " Some faint hopes were entertained of Credit's 
surviving the storm," says Franklin, "as he was pro- 
vided with a good blanket and had some leather to 
eat." 

Hardly had Franklin started on his way when three 
of his voyagers, Belanger, Perrault, and Fontano, and 
Michel, the Iroquois, broke down, and had to return to 
the encampment in the willows. With his four remain- 
ing comrades he marched doggedly on, and at last, to 
his inexpressible relief, his destination came in sight. 
But any hopes that he entertained of finding release 
from the sufferings of himself and his men, were destined 
to be dashed to the ground, for they stumbled into the 
Fort, only to find it cheerless and desolate, with no store 
of provisions and no indications as to the whereabouts 
of the Indians. Back had reached the Fort two days 
earlier, and had left a note to say that he had gone in 
search of Akaitcho and his dilatory hunters, but apart 
from this, there was no sign that the house had been 
entered since Franklin was last there. 

Words cannot describe the bitter disappointment of 
these brave men, who, after their long and dogged fight 
against adversity, found themselves face to face with a 
death no less fearful than that which had threatened 
them on the Barren Grounds. With the exception of a 
few deerskins which had been thrown away as offal 
during their former residence at the Fort, there 
was nothing wherewith they could sustain life, while 
the winter storms had played such havoc with the 
walls and windows of the house that they let in the 



60 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

bitter air freely, and the temperature of the living 
room ranged from 15 to 20 below zero. 

There was nothing for them to do but to bear their 
sufferings as best as they could, and to await relief from 
the faithless Akaitcho and his hunters. That relief, 
however, was not destined to come yet, for two days 
later, they received a note from Back, telling them that 
he had been unable to find the Indians, and asking for 
further instructions. Weak though he was, Franklin now 
felt that the time had come for action, and he accordingly 
decided to set out himself for Fort Confidence, accom- 
panied by two of his men, Augustus, an Eskimo inter- 
preter, and Benoit, one of the voyagers. He had only 
been two days on his journey, however, when he had 
the misfortune to break one of his shoes, and was obliged 
to turn back to his comfortless hut, leaving his two 
companions to push on as best they could. It was, 
perhaps, as well that he did so, for, on reaching the 
Fort, he found that the two Canadians whom he had 
left behind were growing so weak that they had resigned 
themselves to what seemed to them the inevitable, and 
had lain down to die. Franklin's splendid example, how- 
ever, infused fresh courage into them, and by dint of the 
utmost exertions they succeeded in keeping the life in 
their bodies, although they were now so feeble that 
when a herd of deer appeared within half a mile of 
them, they were quite unable to shoot them. 

On the 29th, as they were crouching round a miserable 
fire, they were surprised to hear voices in the next room. 
Their first thought was that the Indians had at last 
come to their rescue. A moment later Richardson and 
Hepburn entered. 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 61 

The arrival of these friends brought some fresh hope 
to the starving men at Fort Enterprise, for Hepburn 
was stronger than the rest, and there was every prospect 
that he would be able to find them some means of 
subsistence. But the sight of those two men standing 
there alone sent a chill to Franklin's heart. What, he 
asked, had become of Hood and Credit and Michel 
and Vaillant ? The answer which he received on the 
following day was more terrible than his worst fears 
had led him to anticipate. Briefly put, Richardson's 
story ran thus. 

On the morning of October 9, that is to say, two 
days after Franklin had started off for Fort Enterprise, 
Michel, the Iroquois, returned to the encampment alone, 
with the news that Belanger, with whom he had started, 
had left him on the way. There was every reason to 
suspect, however, both from the story that he told them, 
and from his subsequent behaviour, that he had made 
away with the Canadian, and that he had invented this 
tale to conceal the horrible sequel to his crime. From 
this time onward his conduct became more and more 
suspicious. He grew sullen and morose, he refused to 
go hunting, or, if he went, he would only go by himself, 
taking his hatchet with him, unlike a hunter, who only 
makes use of his knife when he kills deer. " This fact," 
says Richardson, " seems to indicate that he took it for 
the purpose of cutting up something that he knew to 
be frozen." At last, by a culminating act, he confirmed 
the suspicions which had already come to birth in the 
minds of Richardson and Hepburn, for, on Sunday, 
October 20, when left alone with Hood, he deliberately 
shot his companion through the head. 



62 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

In their weak condition it was, of course, impossible 
for either the doctor or the sailor to wreak summary 
vengeance upon the murderer, although self-preservation 
demanded it. Accordingly, they buried Michel's victim, 
and on the 23rd this party of three — for none of the 
others had succeeded in reaching the camp — decided 
to set out for the Fort. It now became so painfully 
evident that the Iroquois intended his two companions 
to share the fate of his former victims, that there was 
only one course open to them. Accordingly, Richardson 
seized on an opportunity when Michel was not expect- 
ing an attack, to shoot him through the head with a 
pistol. 

After six more days of indescribable sufferings they 
reached the fort, only, as we have seen, to find Franklin 
and the Canadians in no better a case than themselves. 
During the next few days the Canadians, Peltier and 
Samandre\ succumbed, and their friends would inevitably 
have followed them before long had not help arrived 
on November 7. On that day three Indians, who had 
been found by Back, put in an appearance, and, though 
it was, of course, long before the sufferers recovered 
their health and strength, their troubles were practically 
at an end. They left Fort Enterprise on November 16, 
and, travelling by easy stages, they reached Moose 
Deer Island on December 18, where they were joined 
by Back, who had himself gone through a period of 
fearful hardship and privation during his search for 
succour. 

In the summer of the following year Franklin returned 
to England, having accomplished a terrible journey of 
some 5500 miles. The result of his observations, of 



FIRST OVERLAND JOURNEY 63 

course, added greatly to the world's store of knowledge 
of the then unknown regions of North America ; but he 
would have had a different tale to tell had not the rivalry 
between the two trading companies handicapped him 
from start to finish. 



CHAPTER VI 

PARRY'S LAST NORTH-WEST VOYAGES 

WE must now return to Parry, who, it will be 
remembered, landed in England on October 
1820, after making a number of most valuable dis- 
coveries in Lancaster Sound. The results of his voyage 
had been so encouraging that the Government deter- 
mined to prepare another expedition for the following 
year. It was only natural to suppose, however, that 
any further attempts to find a North-West passage 
through Lancaster Sound would be rendered abortive 
by the ice, which seemed to form an absolutely im- 
penetrable barrier across the westward entrance, 
and it was consequently decided to seek a passage 
by a more southerly route, in the hope that the 
climate would be more temperate and the ice less 
of an obstruction. 

On the first expedition the Hecla had proved 
herself an excellent ship, but the Griper, owing 
to her poor sailing qualities, had been less of a 
success. Her place was taken, therefore, by the 
Fury, to which Parry himself was commissioned, 
while Captain George Francis Lyon, an officer of 
great ability, who was especially noted for the 
excellence of his drawings, was placed in command 
of the Hecla. 
64 



LAST NORTH-WEST VOYAGES 65 

So popular was Parry that hardly had the news of 
his appointment been published than he was besieged 
by volunteers, among them being many members of 
his previous expedition. The latter included Lieu- 
tenants Hoppner, Mias, and Reid, James Clark Ross, 
a midshipman who had already had considerable ex- 
perience of Arctic travel, and who was destined sub- 
sequently to win fame for himself by the discovery 
of the magnetic pole ; and Mr Edwards, Parry's former 
surgeon. In all, the party consisted of 118 officers 
and men. 

Parry set sail at the end of April with instructions 
to make direct for Hudson's Strait. Thence he was 
to sail westward until he should reach some part of 
the mainland of North America. On striking the 
coast he was to turn northward, and to examine every 
bay and inlet which might seem to afford a passage 
to the west, thus practically taking up the work of 
exploration where it had been dropped by Captain 
Middleton, who, in 1742, discovered Wager Inlet, and 
penetrated as far north as Cape Hope, near the entrance 
to Repulse Bay. 

He reached Southampton Island on April 27, and 
after some delay occasioned by the ice, he succeeded 
in passing through Frozen Strait and making Repulse 
Bay. Up till that day the precise nature of the bay 
had never been determined, and it was believed by 
many to be in reality the entrance to a strait. Parry, 
however, soon discovered that it was actually a bay, 
and he accordingly turned northward in pursuit of his 
quest for a western passage. The coast along which 
he was now sailing was so broken that his progress 

£ 



66 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

was necessarily slow, and when the beginning of 
October came he found himself no further north than 
the entrance to Lyon Inlet. The work that he did 
during those six weeks, however, though terribly 
tedious, was of immense value, for he mapped out 
every mile of a coast-line which had never been 
explored before. 

It was now too late in the season for him to make 
much further progress that year, so he set sail to the 
south-east with a view to discovering comfortable winter 
quarters on the south side of Winter Island. On 
October 8, after a dangerous voyage through the ice, 
he found a bay which seemed admirably adapted for 
the purpose, and here, accordingly, he hove too and put 
everything ship-shape and in order for the long winter 
months. 

Of the manner in which the crew beguiled their time 
it is unnecessary to speak at length. The theatrical 
performances, which had proved so successful on the 
previous voyage, were repeated, concerts were held, 
and everything possible was done to ward off that arch- 
enemy of the Arctic explorer, the scurvy. At the same 
time, of course, scientific observations were carried on 
without intermission. 

At the beginning of February a party of Eskimos 
put in an appearance, and the explorers were astonished 
to find that a complete village had sprung up in their 
neighbourhood with a rapidity which is generally sup- 
posed to be the sole prerogative of castles in fairy 
stories. The explanation was that not a single material 
was employed in the construction of the huts except 
snow and ice. The natives proved exceptionally 



LAST NORTH-WEST VOYAGES 67 

friendly and rather less greedy than most of their 
race. As a rule the first Eskimo word that the 
uninitiated traveller is taught is "pilletay" — "give 
me" — which springs to a native's lips whenever his 
eyes light upon an object which he has not seen 
before. 

The usual presentations of beads and nails formed a 
part of the introductory ceremonial. The recipients of 
these gifts were wont to display their gratitude in a 
manner that was not a little embarrassing, for when 
they were given anything they went off into fits of 
hysterical screaming or laughter, varied by the women 
with periods of weeping. 

Apart from increasing their knowledge of the habits 
of the Eskimos, the explorers gained but little informa- 
tion that was of any value to them, and they learned 
nothing of that passage to the west for which they were 
seeking. One of the women was able to draw a rough 
map of the coast for some miles northward of Repulse 
Bay, and, in attempting to verify it, Captain Lyon very 
nearly lost his life in a snowstorm. Otherwise, however, 
the winter was marked by no event that need be 
recorded. On July 2, 1822, the two ships sailed out of 
their winter quarters and pursued their journey north- 
ward. 

Occasionally the work of mapping out the coast, 
which, of course, occupied most of their attention, was 
varied by a little walrus-hunting, which proved to be 
excellent sport. Some idea of the strength of these 
creatures may be gathered from the fact that, in a big 
battue in which they indulged on July 15, one of the 
boats was seriously damaged by a walrus's tusks, while 



68 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

another of the creatures, being accidentally touched by 
an oar, wrenched it out of the rower's hand with its 
flippers and broke it in two. The largest of the animals 
killed on that day weighed fifteen hundredweight and a 
half. 

In such a way as this was the whole of the summer 
spent, and the arrival of winter found them as far as 
ever from the discovery of the North- West Passage. 
Parry spent the dark months off the Island of Igloolik, 
intending to continue his work during the following 
summer. An outbreak of scurvy, however, compelled 
him to change his plans, and, cutting short his voyage, 
to return to England, which he reached early in 
October. 

In the following year Parry started out on his third 
and last search for the North- West Passage. The plan 
of the expedition was to explore Prince Regent's Inlet, 
but the ice was bad and the weather was unfavourable, 
with the result that he had barely reached the scene of 
his labours when winter set in. In the following year 
he was even more unfortunate, for the Fury was driven 
ashore in a gale and he was obliged to leave her to her 
fate, taking her men and such of her stores as he could 
find room for on board the Hecla. He had now no 
choice but to return home, as, with so many mouths to 
feed and so little to feed them with, he dared not risk 
another winter in the ice. It is worthy of mention, 
however, that the stores left behind on the ship and on 
the shore proved the salvation of several later ex- 
peditions. 

By no means the least valuable of the pieces of 
information brought back by Parry was that, while 



LAST NORTH-WEST VOYAGES 69 

the eastern coast of any land in the Arctic regions 
is almost invariably encumbered with heavy ice, the 
western coast is, in ordinary years, comparatively free 
— a discovery of which navigators have taken the 
fullest advantage ever since. 



CHAPTER VII 

FRANKLIN'S SECOND LAND JOURNEY 

IN no way deterred by the terrible dangers which he 
had encountered in his first journey, Franklin had 
scarcely returned home when he laid before the Govern- 
ment a scheme for a second expedition which was, 
according to his idea, to proceed " overland to the 
mouth of the Mackenzie River and thence, by sea, to 
the north-western extremity of North America, with 
the combined object, also, of surveying the coast be- 
tween the Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers." It 
was hoped at the same time that, if Parry's party suc- 
ceeded in winning through to the Polar Sea, the two 
expeditions might prove of mutual service to one an- 
other. 

Franklin's plan found favour in the eyes of the 
Government, and he was immediately appointed to the 
command of the new expedition with authority to make 
such preparations as seemed proper to him. Warned 
by his previous experiences, he resolved to run no risks, 
and accordingly arranged a system of supplies which 
would remove all possibility of starvation, and superin- 
tended the construction of a number of boats which 
would be better able to withstand the ardours of navi- 
gation in the Polar Seas than the birch-bark canoes 
which he had previously employed. 

The boats were four in number. Three of them varied 
7 o 



SECOND LAND JOURNEY 71 

from twenty-four to twenty-six feet in length, while the 
fourth, which was called the Walnut Shell, was nine feet 
by four feet four and only weighed eighty-four pounds, 
being so constructed that it could be taken to pieces 
and made up into five or six parcels. 

The party consisted of Franklin, Lieutenant Back, 
Dr Richardson (assistant-surveyor), and Mr Thomas 
Drummond (assistant-naturalist), with four mariners ; 
and their plan of campaign was to be as follows : 
They were to sail to New York, and thence they were 
to make their way by a series of lakes and rivers to the 
Great Bear Lake, where they were to take up their 
quarters for the winter. As soon as the open season 
began they were to divide into two parties, one of 
which was to travel westward from the mouth of the 
Mackenzie, and, if possible, was to round Icy Cape and 
meet H.M.S. Blossom in Kotzebue's Inlet. The other 
was to turn eastward from the Mackenzie, and to 
explore the coast as far as the mouth of the Copper- 
mine. Having reached that river, it was to return to 
the Great Bear Lake overland. 

The first part of the journey was accomplished with- 
out misadventure, and on August 7, 1825, Franklin 
found himself at Fort Norman on the Mackenzie, near 
which point a tributary stream joins the river with the 
Great Bear Lake. The season was still so open that 
he decided to examine the river between Fort Norman 
and the sea before retiring into winter quarters, so he 
sent the main body of the expedition to the lake, with 
orders to erect the necessary buildings, while he and 
Mr Kendall set off downstream. 

They raced along with the stream at a great pace, 



72 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

and on August 16 they reached Ellice Island, lat. 
69° 14', long. 1 35° 56'. They were now on the very 
shore of the Polar Sea, and to their indescribable 
delight they found the ocean absolutely free from ice, 
and, to all appearances, perfectly navigable. 

At this point a somewhat touching incident took 
place. In 1823 Franklin had married a Miss Eleanor 
Purdon, to whom he was absolutely devoted. While 
he was making the preparations for his journey his 
wife fell ill, and to while away the hours of her sickness 
she made him a small silken Union Jack which she 
gave him with injunctions never to unfurl it until he 
planted it on the shores of the Polar Sea. A few days 
after he set sail she died, and he received the news of 
his bereavement soon after he reached America. The 
story of the unfurling of her flag may be told in his 
own words : — 

" The men," he wrote, " had pitched the tent, and 
I caused the silk Union Jack to be hoisted, which my 
deeply lamented wife had made and presented to me 
as a parting gift, under the express condition that it 
was not to be unfurled before the expedition reached 
the Polar Sea. I will not attempt to describe my 
emotions as it expanded to the breeze — however 
natural, and, for the moment, irresistible, I felt that 
I had no right, by the indulgence of my own sorrows, 
to cloud the animated countenances of my companions. 
Joining, therefore, with the best grace that I could 
command in the general excitement, I endeavoured to 
return, with corresponding cheerfulness, their warm 
congratulations on having thus planted the British flag 
on this remote island of the Polar Sea." 



SECOND LAND JOURNEY 73 

Extra grog was served out to the men, and Franklin 
and Kendall prepared to celebrate the event in a little 
brandy which they had reserved for the occasion. Un- 
fortunately, however, the Canadian guide, Baptiste, had, 
in the excitement of the moment, provided them with 
salt water instead of fresh, and they had to use the 
brandy in the more classical form of a libation poured 
on the ground. 

Franklin then erected a flag-staff, and deposited 
under it a letter containing information concerning the 
nearest station of the Hudson Bay Company for the 
use of Parry, in the event of his reaching the mouth of 
the Mackenzie. This done, he set out on the return 
journey to the Great Bear Lake, which he reached on 
September 4. 

He found that the winter quarters had been com- 
pleted during his absence, and that they had already 
been named Fort Franklin in his honour. The party 
had been increased to fifty by fresh arrivals, and, as 
they would have to depend largely upon fish for their 
food supply during the winter months, and it was use- 
less to expect to catch sufficient for so many mouths 
at any one spot, two additional houses were erected, 
four and seven miles away. At the Fort itself fifteen 
to twenty nets were kept in constant use, and fish 
were so plentiful that the catches averaged from three 
hundred to eight hundred a day during the summer 
and winter. 

Only once, towards the end of the winter, was the 
food supply in any danger of failing, and it was 
found necessary to put the party on short rations 
for a while. Fortunately, however, at the critical 



74 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

moment the deer put in an appearance, and Franklin 
was relieved from all further anxiety. Otherwise the 
winter was quite uneventful, and the party lived to- 
gether in complete harmony, which was not a little 
surprising considering that they consisted of such mixed 
nationalities as Englishmen, Highlanders, Canadians, 
Eskimos, Chipewyans, Dog-ribs, Hare Indians, and 
Crees. 

It was on June 20 that the two parties set off from 
the Fort on their voyages of discovery. It had been 
arranged that Franklin and Back, with thirteen men 
and the Eskimo interpreter, Augustus, should man the 
Lion and the Reliance, and should explore the coast 
westwards, while Dr Richardson and Mr Kendall, with 
ten men, should survey the land between the Mackenzie 
and the Coppermine. They dropped down the river 
together till, on July 4, they parted company and started 
off on their respective ways. 

On the 7th Franklin reached the mouth of the river, 
and there he came upon a party of Eskimos encamped 
upon an island, with whom he attempted to open 
negotiations. Things went very smoothly until the 
receding tide left the boats aground. Then, however, 
the Eskimos, having discovered that the boats had on 
board a store of wonderful goods, the like of which they 
had never set eyes on before, decided that it would be 
more to their advantage to lay hands on these at once 
than to await the possible advantages of future trade. 
Consequently, they began a spirited attack upon the 
boats which lasted for several hours, and during the 
course of which they possessed themselves of a con- 
siderable portion of the expedition's property. In 



SECOND LAND JOURNEY 75 

warding off the attack, Franklin and his men were at 
a serious disadvantage, for they knew perfectly well 
that if they used their fire-arms they would eventually 
pay the penalty with their lives. Fortunately, however, 
they were able to prevent the loss of any of their more 
valuable property, such as their sails, oars, and astro- 
nomical instruments, and early on the next morning 
they succeeded in getting the boats out into deep water 
again. 

Having at last shaken off their unwelcome visitors, 
Franklin and his party continued their journey west- 
ward. On the following day they fell in with another 
party of Eskimos, who proved to be more friendly than 
the last, and provided Franklin with a quantity of 
information concerning the coast along which he was 
about to travel. In the main, they were discouraging, 
for they told him that, though in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood the ice might be expected to drift away from 
the shore if a southerly wind arose, further to the west- 
ward it frequently adhered to the land throughout the 
whole summer, and even if he were so fortunate as to 
find any channels, navigation could not be very safe, 
as the ice was continually tossing about. They ex- 
pressed their surprise that the explorers had not 
brought with them dogs and sledges for use when 
the sea route proved impossible. In later years, of 
course, it was found that the plan suggested by the 
Eskimos was the only one by which any material 
advance could be made in the Polar regions. 

Franklin, however, was not inclined to pin too much 
faith upon the Eskimos' information, as he learnt that, 
during the summer months, they never wandered far 



76 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

from the Mackenzie, and could not, in consequence, 
know very much about the condition of the more 
westerly seas. So, a southerly wind springing up and 
carrying the ice away from the shore, he pressed 
forward with such speed as the somewhat variable 
conditions would allow. During the course of the next 
few days he discovered and named Points Sabine and 
King, Herschell Island, Canning River, and Flaxman's 
Island, and on August 10 he reached Foggy Island. 
On this unattractive spot the party was doomed to 
remain till the 16th, for a fog came down upon 
them and refused to clear away again. Fog, of course, 
is one of the most dangerous enemies of the Arctic 
navigator, for, when his course is obscured by it, 
he may be wrecked by an ice-floe before he is aware 
of his danger. Consequently there was nothing for 
them to do but to kick their heels on Foggy Island 
until more favourable weather allowed them to 
proceed. 

This untimely delay deprived the expedition of 
all hope of success. Had they not lost those six 
valuable days they might very well have succeeded 
in joining the advance party sent out from H.M.S. 
Blossom in Kotzebue's Inlet. As it was, they had 
no choice but to turn back to the Great Bear Lake, 
which they reached on September 21. 

On arriving at Fort Franklin they found that Dr 
Richardson, Mr Kendall and their party had already 
returned, having brought their expedition to a suc- 
cessful conclusion. They, too, had had some difficulties 
with the Eskimos, but, apart from this, they had met 
with no adventure worth recording. They had sailed 



SECOND LAND JOURNEY -jj 

steadily along the coast, naming its principal features 
as they passed them. Liverpool Bay, Cape Bathurst, 
Franklin Bay, Cape Parry, Dolphin and Union Strait, 
and Cape Krusenstern, all owe their names to this 
expedition. 

It was at the last of these, which is in lat. 68° 23', 
long. 1 1 3 45' W., and stands at the western extremity 
of Coronation Gulf, that they connected the discoveries 
of the voyage with those made by Franklin on his 
former expedition. On the following day (August 8) 
they reached the mouth of the Coppermine, and there 
they found the remains of the fire which Franklin's 
previous expedition had made before setting out on 
its journey. The river was so shallow that it 
was impossible to navigate it in the boats that 
they were now using, so, after dragging them out 
of reach of any flood and stowing away any stores 
which they did not require in the tents, they began 
the return journey on foot. They reached Fort 
Franklin on August 18 "after an absence of 
seventy-one days, during which period we had 
travelled by land and water 1709 geographical or 
1980 statute miles." 

The winter passed without any particular incident, 
except some remarkably severe frosts. Some idea of 
the intense cold may be gathered from the fact that on 
January 24, 1827, when the temperature was at 52 2' 
below zero, Mr Kendall froze some mercury in the 
mould of a bullet and fired it from his pistol. This, 
however, was not the coldest weather that they experi- 
enced, for on February 7 the thermometer stood at 58 
below zero. 



78 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

During the summer of 1827 the party returned to 
England after an expedition which, if it had not 
absolutely fulfilled the purpose with which it had 
started, had certainly acquired some most valuable 
information. 



CHAPTER VIII 

parry's north-polar voyage 

IT is not necessary to concern ourselves much with 
Captain Lyon's subsidiary voyage of 1824. His 
instructions were to proceed to Repulse Bay in the 
Hecla, and to explore the isthmus which connects 
Melville Peninsula with the mainland and the coast 
beyond it. For reasons best known to himself, how- 
ever, he tried to reach the bay by sailing round the 
south and up the west coasts of Southampton Island, 
instead of taking the shorter route along the north of 
the island, which Parry had always adopted. The 
result was that his expedition was very nearly lost, 
and he was obliged to return home before he had even 
reached the bay. 

Nor is it necessary for us to follow Captain Beechey 
and the Blossom to Kotzebue Sound, where, it was 
hoped, they would meet Franklin and his party. He 
spent part of his time in cruising as far as Icy Cape, 
while the barge, which he sent forward under Mr Elson 
to search for Franklin and his party, explored the coast 
as far as Barrow Point — only 146 miles from Franklin's 
furthest point. Otherwise, however, nothing occurred 
that is worthy of note. 

Passing over these, we now come to Parry's last 



80 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

and, in some ways, his greatest voyage, a voyage which 
opened up a new epoch in Arctic exploration. He 
returned from his third journey in search of the North- 
West Passage in October 1825, and in the spring of 
1826 he suggested to Lord Melville, then First Lord of 
the Admiralty, a plan for reaching the North Pole by 
means of sledge-boats, which should travel either over 
the ice or through any spaces of open water which 
might intervene. The idea, it should be said, had 
actually originated with Franklin, who had proposed 
the journey some years before, and had offered to take 
command of it himself. As, however, he was now 
away on his second journey through North America, 
Parry's services were retained for the expedition, which 
found complete favour in the eyes of the Admiralty. 
He was, in consequence, commissioned to the Hecla on 
November 11, 1826. 

In order to make the objective of the journey per- 
fectly clear, it will be best to quote a passage from 
the official instructions : "On your arrival at the 
northern shores of Spitzbergen," they ran, "you will 
fix upon some harbour or cove, in which the Hecla 
may be placed, and, having properly secured her, you 
are then to proceed with the boats, whose requirements 
have, under your own directions, been furnished ex- 
pressly for the service, directly to the northward, and 
use your best endeavours to reach the North Pole; 
and, having made such observations as are specified 
in your instructions for your former voyages in the 
northern regions, and such as will be pointed out to 
you by the Council of the Royal Society, added to 
those which your own experience will suggest, you will 



PARRY'S IS ORTH -POLAR VOYAGE 81 

be careful to return to Spitzbergen before the winter 
sets in, and at such a period of the autumn as will 
ensure the vessels you command not being frozen up 
and thus obliged to winter there." 

The sledge-boats alluded to were of a somewhat 
peculiar construction, and were, on the whole, very well 
adapted for the purpose for which they were intended. 
They were flat-bottomed, and measured 20 feet long 
and, at their greatest beam, 7 feet broad. On a frame 
of ash and hickory was stretched a sheet of mackintosh 
waterproofing coated with tar. Outside this were 
placed first a layer of thin fir planking, then a sheet 
of stout felt, and lastly a thin planking of oak. A 
strong runner shod with steel was attached on either 
side of the keel, while to the forepart of the runner was 
fixed a span of hide-rope to be used for dragging the 
boat over the ice. The equipment also included a 
light bamboo mast, 19 feet long, a tanned duck sail, 
which could also serve the purpose of an awning, a 
spreat, a boat-hook, fourteen paddles, and a steer-oar. 

The expedition sailed on April 4, 1827, and on the 
17th the Hecla was off Hammerfest, a port on the 
Island of Soroe, off the Lapland coast. Here she was 
to call for a number of tame reindeer which would, it 
was hoped, be useful for pulling the boats along the 
ice. As matters turned out, however, their services 
were not required. By the middle of May they had 
reached Spitzbergen, and a month was now spent in try- 
ing to find a suitable harbourage for the Hecla. Most 
of the bays that they passed were so encumbered with 
ice that it was quite impossible to reach them ; but at 
last, on the north coast of West Spitzbergen, they came 



82 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

upon a deep indentation named Treurenburg Bay, 
which suited their purpose admirably. Here, then, 
they made the Hecla fast and prepared to start on their 
journey towards the North Pole. 

The boats were loaded with provisions for seventy- 
one days, and on the afternoon of June 21 they began 
their voyage. It had been decided to leave the rein- 
deer behind as the ice, as seen from the crow's-nest, 
was so rough and hummocky that they could be of no 
use whatever. The weather was fine and clear, the 
boats proved to be thoroughly seaworthy, and in due 
time they passed Little Table Island, the last piece of 
land which they would see for some weeks. 

So long as they were travelling over the open sea their 

progress was easy enough, and it was only when they 

reached the ice that their difficulties began. They had 

expected the first part of their trip to be arduous, and 

they were certainly not disappointed, for they found that 

their road lay over small, rugged floes of ice, separated 

from one another by pools of water. Each of these 

pools had to be crossed three or four times, as it was 

always necessary to unload the boats on taking them 

out of the water, and then, after dragging them with 

infinite labour through chasms and up and down great 

hummocks of ice, the men had to return to the point 

from which they set out for their clothes and food. 

Consequently their progress was exceedingly slow and 

tedious, and on the first day's journey they only made 

two and a half miles of northing. 

Parry had decided to travel entirely by night, and 
this for various reasons. There is, of course, no dark- 
ness at all during an Arctic summer, but the sun was 



PARRY'S NORTH-POLAR VOYAGE 8$ 

less powerful in the night, and the snow in conse- 
quence was firmer, while the glare, which by day was 
so strong as to produce inflammation of the eyes, was 
less oppressive. Furthermore, by sleeping during the 
warmer hours, it was possible for them to dry their 
working clothes, which were generally wet through 
from floundering about in pools of water. 

They had hoped that when they were once through 
this preliminary field of broken ice they would reach a 
level sheet, over which they might travel with com- 
parative ease, but, as time went on, the conditions 
seemed to become worse instead of better, for on the 
morning of the 26th rain began to fall heavily, with 
the result that the explorers were soon wet through, 
and nearly half the surface of the ice over which they 
had to travel was covered with little pools. From that 
time rain was almost constant, and Parry was the 
first to observe that the climate of these remoter Polar 
regions is actually milder than those of the northern 
shores of America, 7 to 1 5 further south. 

The rain was often varied by fog, while, to add to 
the difficulties of the journey, they found that much of 
the surface ice over which they had to travel was 
composed of needle-like crystals, placed vertically, 
which, as the season advanced, afforded very poor 
foothold and cut their boots and feet. 

One day was very like another on that most difficult 
journey. The party was usually aroused at about 
eight o'clock in the evening by a lusty tar blowing a 
reveille on a bugle. After prayers had been read, the 
men exchanged their fur sleeping suits for their walking 
clothes, which were, as a rule, still soaking wet or else 



84 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 



frozen solid. This done, they would breakfast on cocoa 
and biscuits, and, having loaded the sledges, they 
would set about the day's work. Their course under- 
went a good deal of variety, but it was never anything 
but arduous. Sometimes they had to haul the boat by 
main force over almost perpendicular blocks of ice. 
Sometimes they had to toil through snowy sludge, into 
which they sank so deeply that on one occasion it took 
them two hours to travel a hundred yards. Sometimes 
the pools and channels which separated the ice blocks 
from one another were not more than half a boat's 
length broad, and the provisions had to be ferried over 
on blocks of ice, a most anxious proceeding, seeing that 
if an accident had occurred the whole party would have 
been left to starve. 

After anything between five and ten hours' work, 
during which they would make four or five miles, they 
would halt for the night, or, to speak more accurately, 
for the day, and, having changed into dry clothes, they 
would set about the necessary repairs, take supper, and 
retire to bed. 

As they proceeded northward their progress seemed 
to become slower and slower. Parry had long since 
given up all hope of reaching the North Pole, but he 
had made up his mind, if possible, to touch the 83rd 
parallel, and thus to win the ^1000 reward offered by 
the Government, but he was not prepared for the 
terrible disappointment with which he met at the end 
of July. On the 20th he ascertained by observation 
that his latitude was only 82 36', or less than five 
miles to the northward of his situation at noon on the 
17th, although he was positive that they had travelled 



ia 



PARRY'S NORTH-POLAR VOYAGE 85 

at least twelve miles. During the next few days the 
result of the observations was always the same, and he 
invariably found himself several miles south of the 
point to which he believed the previous day's journey 
had brought him. He was therefore forced to the con- 
clusion that the ice over which he was travelling was 
drifting steadily southward, and that he was losing 
during the day much of the ground that he had made 
during the night. So, after reaching lat. 82 45', a 
point which had never been attained before, and stood 
as a record for forty-five years, he decided to turn 
back. He was now only 172 miles from the Heda, and 
of these 100 miles represented the journey over the 
water before reaching the ice. But as most of the 72 
miles over the ice had been covered at least three, 
and sometimes five, times, the distance that they had 
travelled was about 580 geographical or 688 statute 
miles, almost exactly the distance from the Heda to 
the Pole in a direct line. 

The return journey was begun on July 27, and on 
August 21 they reached the Heda without meeting 
with any contretemps. They set sail for home on 
August 28, and on September 29 Parry went to report 
himself at the Admiralty, where, curiously enough, he 
met Franklin, who had returned from his North 
American journey on exactly the same day. 

Parry was received with enthusiasm wherever he 
went, and honours were showered on him in England 
and on the Continent. But from that point he leaves 
our narrative, for he never again sailed for the Polar 
seas. 



CHAPTER IX 

ROSS'S ADVENTURES IN THE "VICTORY" 

THE idea of discovering a north-west passage, 
though temporarily eclipsed by Parry's great 
effort to reach the North Pole, was by no means set 
aside, and in 1828, soon after the return of the Polar 
Expedition, Captain John Ross approached the Govern- 
ment with a plan for the long-dreamt-of route through 
Prince Regent's Inlet. It will be remembered that Ross 
had had some previous experience of Arctic navigation, 
for in 181 8 he had set out with the Isabella and Alex- 
ander on a voyage through Baffin's Bay, Parry being his 
second in command. On that occasion he distinguished 
himself by jumping to the conclusion that Lancaster 
Sound was a land-locked bay, and possibly on account 
of this error the Government did not see fit to entertain 
his new proposal. 

Thanks, however, to the generosity of his friend Mr 
Felix Booth, he was able, in 1829, to buy and fit out a 
paddle steamer called the Victory, which had previously 
been used as a steam packet running between Liverpool 
and the Isle of Man. 

In those days, of course, navigation by steam was 
in the very earliest stages of its development, and 
the experiment of sailing the Arctic seas in a boat 
propelled by the new motive power had yet to be 



ADVENTURES IN THE "VICTORY" 87 

tried. The disadvantages of paddles in the ice were 
many and obvious, but they were minimised by an 
ingenious contrivance whereby the paddles could be 
lifted out of the water in a minute ; while the Victory 
was also so fitted out that she could be used as a 
sailing vessel if necessary. 

No sooner was the news of the preparation of the 
expedition made known, than Ross received offers 
of service from many experienced Arctic navigators, 
among them being Lieutenant Hoppner, Parry's former 
colleague, and Captain Back, Franklin's friend and 
companion. He had, however, already selected his 
nephew, Lieutenant James Clark Ross, as his second 
in command, and he could not, in consequence, accept 
their proposals. 

The Victory set sail on May 23, 1829, and it was 
soon found to be fortunate that she had her sails to 
fall back upon, for the machinery, which was of the 
crudest description, was constantly getting out of 
working order, and, bit by bit, was ultimately rejected 
and thrown away. 

Lancaster Sound was reached without any serious 
misadventure, and on August 10 the Victory rounded 
Cape York and entered Prince Regent's Inlet. Ross 
then headed for the western shore, and he was soon 
off the place where the Fury had been lost on Parry's 
previous expedition. The weather was bad, but he 
eventually succeeded in effecting a landing within a 
quarter of a mile of that ill-fated spot. Of the Fury 
herself no trace was to be seen, but the shore was 
strewn with coal, while in the officers' mess-hut, which 
Parry had erected before leaving, were quantities of 



88 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

stores which proved of inestimable value to the present 
party of explorers. The bears had evidently been 
bestowing their attentions upon the contents of the 
storehouse, but they had been unable to make any- 
thing of the preserved meats and vegetables which, 
in spite of their four years' exposure to the weather, 
were in an excellent state of preservation. 

The Victory had been originally provisioned for a 
thousand days, and as he had already drawn pretty 
freely upon his stores, Ross decided to make up the 
deficit from the hoard left by the Fury. They con- 
sequently took on board enough stores and provisions 
to complete their equipment for two years and three 
months, and set sail for the south. 

On August 1 5 they passed Cape Garry, the furthest 
point of the coast yet discovered. From this point 
onwards, of course, they devoted themselves to mapping 
out and naming the principal features of the seaboard 
along which they sailed ; and in due course they reached 
what appeared to them to be a continuous stretch of 
land, which they named Boothia, in honour of Mr 
Felix Booth, who had equipped the expedition. 

Whether it was ill luck, or whether it was a lack of 
perspicacity, it is difficult to say, but certain it is that 
Ross seemed always to be foredoomed just to miss the 
prize for which he was seeking. On his former voyage 
he mistook Lancaster Sound for an inlet, and, in con- 
sequence, the kudos which he might have gained from 
its discovery went to Parry instead. But on this 
occasion he was even more unfortunate, for, just before 
he reached Boothia, he passed Bellot Strait, which, as 
Kennedy subsequently discovered, leads directly into 



ADVENTURES IN THE 'VICTORY" 89 

the Arctic Sea, the very North- West Passage, in fact, 
for which he was looking. He again missed his chance, 
however, and, failing to recognise it as a strait, he 
named it Hazard Inlet and went on his way without 
the remotest idea of the discovery which he might 
have made had he taken the trouble to examine the 
inlet a little more closely. 

Soon after this the Victory fell in with the ice and her 
voyage became one of the most hazardous description. 
Over and over again she seemed in imminent danger of 
being sunk, but she always managed to pull through, 
and eventually, on October 1, Ross found himself in a 
bay which seemed to be designed by nature for his 
winter quarters. 

Here, accordingly, he decided to stay and his vessel 
was soon put ship-shape and in order for what 
ultimately proved to be the longest sojourn ever made 
by an explorer in the Arctic regions till then. It 
was not, indeed, until four winters had passed that 
the party was able to leave this dreary quarter of the 
world, and even then they were obliged to abandon 
their ship and take to the boats. 

Very little that is worthy of note occurred during the 
first winter. The monotony of the excessively dull 
season was, however, relieved by the appearance of 
a party of Eskimos, who proved to be thoroughly 
friendly, except on one occasion when they nearly 
assassinated half the party because they imagined that 
they had caused the death of one of the members of 
their tribe by witchcraft. The white men, by the way, 
won their sinister reputation in a rather curious way. 
One of the Eskimos had had the misfortune to lose a leg 



90 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

during an altercation with a bear. The ship's carpenter, 
seeing how severely handicapped the man was, thought- 
fully provided him with a wooden leg, to the amazement 
and delight of himself and his fellows, who imagined 
that their new friends must be possessed of some very 
extraordinary powers to be able to provide the legless 
with fresh means of locomotion. One of them was so 
fascinated by the carpenter's ingenuity that, having 
done some slight damage to one of his own legs, he 
suggested that it would not be amiss if he were pro- 
vided with a new one. On being informed, however, 
that it would be necessary to cut the other off first, he 
regarded the scheme with less enthusiasm. 

With a view to obtaining from the Eskimos such 
geographical information as they might possess, Ross 
would frequently invite parties of them to dinner in his 
cabin. They did not, however, look upon English food 
with much favour. Salt meat, pudding, rice, or sweets 
they regarded with abhorrence, and the only articles of 
English diet that they would touch were soup and 
salmon, which they would wash down with beakers of 
oil, wine proving not at all to their tastes. 

It was not until September 17 that the Victory was 
floating in open water again, but her release was 
destined to be short-lived, for after drifting about for 
a fortnight, the explorers found themselves frozen in 
again on September 30, only a few miles from the spot 
at which they had spent the previous winter. 

For some months it had been pretty evident, from 
the variations of the compass and the dip of the mag- 
netic needle, that they were very near that mysterious 
centre of terrestrial magnetism, the North Magnetic 



ADVENTURES IN THE "VICTORY" 91 

Pole, and Ross came to the conclusion that his 
present enforced sojourn among the ice might be 
profitably employed in determining the point exactly. 
Accordingly, at the end of May 1831, the younger 
Ross set out with a party, armed with the instruments 
necessary for making the discovery which had occupied 
the thoughts of Parry on his earlier journey. They 
travelled westwards over the Boothia wilderness, and 
at eight o'clock on the morning of June 1 they 
realised that they had discovered the object of their 
search. 

There was nothing in the place itself to distinguish 
it from the surrounding country, but the horizontal 
needles, which were suspended in the most delicate 
manner possible, remained absolutely inactive, while 
the amount of dip recorded by the dipping needle was 
89 59', or within one minute of the vertical. 

Having come definitely to the conclusion that he 
was actually standing on the Magnetic Pole, Ross 
hoisted the British flag and took possession of it and 
of its adjoining territory in the name of Great Britain 
and King William IV. He then raised a cairn of 
stones, in which he buried a canister containing a 
record of the discovery, and having determined the 
latitude to be yo° 5' N., and the longitude 96 43' 
W., he set out on the return journey, which was accom- 
plished without misadventure. 

It had been hoped that the Victory would be able to 
sail for the open sea at the end of August, and by 
the 27th the bay was practically free of ice. But the 
travellers were once more doomed to disappointment, 
for adverse winds sprang up, and before she had 



92 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

travelled many miles she was driven into a small bay 
into which she was promptly frozen. 

By the middle of January 1832 it became perfectly 
obvious that if the members of the party were ever to 
return to England alive they must make a push for it ; 
for scurvy broke out, and the health of his men became 
so enfeebled that they were faced by the unpleasant 
prospect of dying, one by one, in those inclement 
regions. Accordingly Ross determined to abandon the 
Victory and to take to the boats. 

Experience, however, had taught him that it would 
be madness to hope to make any substantial pro- 
gress in the very short time during which the sea 
in that neighbourhood appeared to be free from ice. 
So sledges were prepared, and the winter months 
were spent in dragging the boats over the ice in the 
direction of Fury Beach. The men were terribly 
reduced in strength by illness, and the hardships of their 
journey were appalling. However, it was their only 
chance of surviving, and they plodded steadily on. 
They left the Victory on May 29, and it was not until 
July 2 that they found themselves on Fury Beach, after 
an incredibly laborious journey which, in a direct line, 
was over three hundred miles, but which, in their case, 
was vastly lengthened by the fact that the combined 
strength of the whole party was often only sufficient to 
drag one boat at a time, and they were constantly 
obliged to cover each stretch of their journey two or 
three times. 

On arriving at Fury Beach they built themselves a 
house, which they named Somerset House, and settled 
down to wait for the breaking up of the ice. Once 



ADVENTURES IN THE "VICTORY'' 93 

more, however, they were doomed to disappointment. 
At the beginning of August they set sail for the north, 
and the open sea, but they were almost immediately 
driven ashore again by the ice, and though they made 
one subsequent attempt to escape, they met with no 
better success. 

There was nothing for it, therefore, but to make the 
best of a bad business, and to return to Somerset 
House for the winter. Mercifully there was still an 
abundance of the Fury's stores left, and they were, in 
consequence, in no danger of starving, but it may well 
be imagined that the disappointment was extreme, and 
that the prospect of being obliged to spend an Arctic 
winter in a cabin, that was but ill protected against 
the weather, was not enticing. 

Their troubles, however, were approaching an end, 
for in the following summer the ice cleared away from 
the inlet, and the explorers were able to quit the 
country in which they had spent four tedious winters. 
Sailing on July 14 they were picked up on the 26th by 
a whaler which, curiously enough, Ross himself had 
once commanded — the Isabella, of Hull. It was only 
with some difficulty that they succeeded in persuading 
the mate of the boat which put out to meet them that 
they were not their own ghosts, for the party had long 
since been given up as lost. However, this difficulty 
having been satisfactorily overcome, they were taken 
on board, and they eventually arrived home in the 
middle of October. 

Ross failed in the object of his voyage, partly, 
perhaps, through his own stupidity, for as we have 
already pointed out, he was at one time within an ace 



94 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

of finding the North-West Passage. But his ex- 
pedition had most valuable results, for not only did his 
nephew, James Clark Ross, locate the Magnetic Pole, 
but he also mapped out some six or seven hundred 
miles of coast line on either shore of Boothia and 
he made some exceedingly serviceable notes on the 
climatic conditions of North-Eastern America. 

If he has never received full credit for his work, it is, 
perhaps, his own fault, for he made himself a most 
unpopular commander, and, if we may judge from the 
persistent pessimism of his diaries, he must have been 
a most depressing companion in the Arctic regions. 
Consequently most of the kudos has been given to his 
nephew, who was, no doubt, personally responsible for 
the discovery of the Magnetic Pole, but who, after all, 
was only a member of his uncle's expedition, and was 
acting entirely under his uncle's orders and directions. 



CHAPTER X 

back's two journeys 

THE prolonged absence of Ross and his party 
naturally gave their friends at home cause for the 
keenest anxiety. Many, believing it to be impossible for 
any Englishman to survive four consecutive winters in 
the inhospitable Arctic regions, gave them up for dead. 
There were others, however, who, knowing of the 
abundance of supplies on Fury Beach, entertained a 
hope that they might still be alive, and among these 
was Mr George Ross, a near relative of the commander 
of the Victory. 

Mr Ross felt that, if it were possible to find a man 
who would be prepared to lead an expedition through 
Northern America, and thence to Fury Beach, the crew 
of the Victory might be rescued, or, at any rate, some 
definite information might be obtained concerning their 
fate. Such a man was forthcoming in Captain George 
Back, the companion of Franklin, both on the Trent 
and on his two land expeditions. It was in June 1832 
that Back first heard of the projected expedition, and he 
promptly offered his services, which were as promptly 
accepted. So much interest did the Government take 
in the enterprise that they contributed largely towards 
its expenses, the rest of the necessary funds being 
easily obtained by public and private subscription. 



96 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

In the meanwhile, the Hudson's Bay Company was 
not slow to display its sympathy. Its agents were 
informed that an expedition was likely to set out in 
the following spring, and were ordered to make the 
way easy for it, while two boats, two canoes and 120 
bags of pemmican were placed at the disposal of 
Back, who was also empowered to levy contributions 
of provisions and stores at any of the Company's 
stations. 

The plan of campaign was to be as follows. After 
spending the winter of 1833-34 at the Great Bear 
Lake, the expedition was to attempt the navigation 
of the great and hitherto unexplored river which had 
its source slightly to the east. This river was known 
to the Indians by the tongue-twisting name of Thlew- 
ee-chon-desseth, which, being translated, merely means 
the Great Fish River. Nothing definite was known 
concerning it, but it was believed to flow either into 
the eastern extremity of the Polar Sea or into Prince 
Regent's Inlet itself. Thence it would only be a 
matter of 300 miles to Fury Beach, where, it was well 
known, Ross intended to call for supplies. It will be 
seen that this expedition was to open up entirely new 
ground, and it was hoped that Back, who was to be 
accompanied by Mr Richard King, a naturalist of 
repute, and eighteen men, would make some valuable 
scientific discoveries. 

The Great Slave Lake was reached without mis- 
adventure, and as the season was still early, Back 
determined to set out on a preliminary expedition in 
search of the source of the Great Fish River, which 
had never yet been properly located. He found that 



BACK'S TWO JOURNEYS 97 

his task was by no means light, for his way lay through 
a chain of rivers and lakes, involving countless port- 
ages, while, to add to his troubles, his interpreter fell 
ill and two of his Indian companions deserted. How- 
ever, on August 31 he succeeded in reaching the river 
for which he was searching, and, though the season 
was now too late to admit of extended exploration, 
he was able to find out what build of boat would be 
necessary for the descent in the following year. This 
done, he made his way back to the spot on the Great 
Slave Lake which had been selected for the party's 
winter quarters. 

Here he found that the construction of their quarters 
was proceeding apace. The framework of the house 
was already up, a fishery had been established which 
was yielding a plentiful supply of food, while Indians 
were already beginning to flock to Fort Reliance, as 
Back had named his winter quarters. The Indians of 
that country, it should be said, had an innate objection 
to being burdened with the sick and aged members of 
their tribe, and were in the habit of entrusting them to 
the care of the nearest white man, a species of dumping 
against which it was impossible to take any protective 
measures. Consequently Back soon found himself 
with a number of helpless dependants upon his hands, 
who were all the less welcome because the fishery, as 
time went on, did not prove an unalloyed success and 
the supply of food ran rather low. 

The latter misfortune was attributed by the natives 
simply and solely to the evil machinations of a stone 
observatory which the explorers erected at the Fort. 
The use of the astronomical instruments which it con- 



98 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

tained was totally beyond their comprehension, and in 
consequence they adopted what seemed to their un- 
tutored minds to be the only rational explanation, 
namely that they were in some way connected with 
witchcraft. This opinion was strengthened by the 
evidence of two Canadian voyagers, who, having 
chanced to peep into the observatory at the 
moment when Back and King were taking the dip of 
the magnetic needle, instantly told their companions 
that they had caught the white chief in the very act of 
raising the devil. 

More than once during the winter the food supply 
was in danger of failing. The party, however, was 
preserved from starvation by Akaitcho, the old Copper- 
mine chief, who put in a timely appearance with a 
supply of fresh meat. Still the distress at the Fort was 
often very serious, for not only was food scarce, but the 
winter was one of the coldest on record. The thermo- 
meter often stood at 70° below zero, while some idea of 
the difficulties attending ablution may be gathered from 
the fact that, on one occasion, when Back was obliged 
to wash his face at a distance of three feet from the fire, 
his hair was clothed with ice before he had time to dry it. 

Towards the end of April a messenger arrived at the 
Fort with news that materially altered Back's plans, 
for he brought with him extracts from the Times which 
told of the safe return of Ross and his party. How- 
ever, there was still his work of exploration to be 
carried out, so at the end of June he started off for the 
Great Fish River, whither carpenters had already been 
sent to build boats suitable for the voyage to the sea. 

The descent of the river actually began on June 27> 



BACK'S TWO JOURNEYS 99 

and was one of the most exciting trips on record. The 
stream was constantly interrupted by rapids, falls, and 
rocks, and had not Back been provided with a bowman 
and a steersman of exceptional nerve and dexterity 
in Sinclair, a half-breed, and M'Kay, a Highlander, 
calamity would have overtaken his party before it was 
very far on its way. 

A characteristic story is told of M'Kay which well 
deserves quotation. At a peculiarly crucial moment, 
when the boat was being swirled down one of the 
most dangerous rapids that the expedition had had to 
negotiate, an oar broke, and the boat and its occupants 
were within an ace of being hurled incontinently down 
an appalling fall. The situation proved altogether too 
much for one member of the crew, who began to cry 
aloud for Divine assistance. He was interrupted, how- 
ever, by M'Kay, who yelled at him in a voice which 
carried even above the roar of the water, " Is this a time 
for praying ? Pull your starboard oar ! " 

After a most perilous voyage, during which they 
covered 530 miles and negotiated no fewer than 
eighty-three falls, rapids, and cascades, Back and 
his party reached the mouth of the Great Fish River 
at the end of July. His hopes of being able to 
penetrate westward as far as Cape Turnagain were, 
however, doomed to disappointment, for the shore 
was so encumbered with ice that navigation was out 
of the question. After waiting for a few days in the 
hope that the sea would clear he determined to return 
home, so, after giving the name of King William 
Land to the big island which lay opposite the mouth 
of the river, he started on the homeward journey on 

LOFC, 



ioo ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

August 21, reaching his destination on September 17, 
and in the following year he returned to England. It 
should be added that, in honour of this voyage, the 
name of the river was changed to that of Back River. 

Back was not destined to remain idle for long, for in 
1836 he was despatched by the Government to find a 
passage from Prince Regent's Inlet into the Polar Sea, if 
such a passage existed. According to his instructions 
he was to make for Wager Inlet or Repulse Bay in 
the Terror, which had been specially fitted out for the 
voyage, and was manned by a splendid company, 
including Robert M'Clure, the future discoverer of the 
North- West Passage, and Graham Gore, one of Franklin's 
companions on his last and fatal expedition. There he 
was to spend the winter, and in the following year he was 
to cross the isthmus joining Melville Peninsula to the 
mainland and pursue his way towards Cape Turnagain. 

Unfortunately he was not destined even to reach 
the scene of operations. Before she had made 
Southampton Island the Terror was caught in the 
pack, and all her captain's efforts to set her free 
again were unavailing. From this time onwards the 
situation of the crew was one of perpetual peril. 
Northerly winds swept the ice down upon her with 
terrific force, and, had she not been of an exceptionally 
strong build, she must have been crushed to pieces. 
As it was, her bolts started and her timbers cracked, 
till it was found necessary to hold her together with 
chains passed under her keel. 

As the winter wore on matters became worse, for 
not only did the danger from the ice show no signs 
of diminishing, but scurvy broke out, and several men 



BACK'S TWO JOURNEYS 101 

died of that terrible disease. For long and weary 
months the crew lived under the very shadow of 
death, and it was not until the beginning of May, 
by which time the Terror had drifted to the mouth 
of Hudson's Strait, that they dared to entertain any 
hopes of ultimate deliverance. At last, however, the 
ice broke away from the ship's sides, and she was 
afloat once more, but in so terribly crazy a condition 
that she was by no means fit for a voyage across the 
Atlantic. However chain cables were passed under 
her and made fast to ringbolts on the quarter deck, 
and, thus patched up, she accomplished the journey 
in safety, reaching British waters on September 3. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE DISCOVERIES OF DEASE AND SIMPSON 

MEANWHILE the exploration of the shores of 
Northern America was proceeding apace. At 
the time when the Terror sailed for Hudson's Strait 
the situation was this. Beechey, starting from the 
west, had mapped out the coast as far as Point 
Barrow. No white man had yet examined the coast 
from Point Barrow to Return Reef, a matter of 
some 150 miles. The expeditions of Franklin and 
Richardson, however, had covered the whole distance 
between Return Reef and Point Turnagain, but the 
coast-line between that point and the mouth of the 
Great Fish or Back River still remained to be 
explored, as, too, did the shore of the Polar Sea 
eastward of the Great Fish River. It was to the 
last-named stretch of coast-line that the greatest 
importance was attached, because it was felt that 
search might very possibly reveal the existence of a 
waterway between Regent's Inlet and the Polar 
Sea. There being so much work to be done in 
this direction, in 1836 the Hudson's Bay Company 
determined to send out an expedition on its own 
account "to endeavour to complete the discovery 
and survey of the northern shores of the American 
continent." The command of the expedition was 
given to two of the Company's officers, Mr Peter 



DEASE AND SIMPSON 103 

Warren Dease and Mr Thomas Simpson. Dease had 
accompanied Franklin on his expedition of 1825-26, 
and, on account of his seniority in the Company's 
service, the command of the party was given to him. 
Simpson was only a junior official, but he was a 
man of such immense enthusiasm and ability that, 
to all intents and purposes, before many weeks were 
over, he became the actual leader, and the most 
important discoveries made by the expedition must 
really be accredited to him. 

According to the official instructions, the party, 
which was to consist of twelve men in addition to 
the two officers, was to proceed to the Athabasca 
Lake, and to winter either at Fort Chipewyan or at 
Fort Resolution. The summer of 1837 was to be 
devoted to the exploration of the coast-line between 
the mouth of the Mackenzie River, which would lead 
them to the sea, and Point Barrow. As soon as 
winter set in the party was to make its way to the 
Great Bear Lake, whence, in the summer of 1838, 
it was to pass down the Coppermine River, with a 
view to linking up Franklin's discoveries with those 
of Back. 

In pursuance of this plan Dease set out for the 
Athabasca Lake at the end of July, while Simpson, 
who was a man of extraordinary energy, went south 
to the Red River Settlement, with a view to rubbing 
up his astronomy, entirely undeterred by the fact 
that he would have to make the whole of his journey 
to the Athabasca Lake — a distance of 1277 miles — 
on foot, in the depth of winter, over a rugged and 
trackless waste. It was to energy of this kind that 



io4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

he owed so much of his success. Frequently during 
his subsequent trips he achieved feats which had 
hitherto been regarded as absolutely impossible, while 
he invariably travelled at a pace which none of his 
predecessors had ever approached. He covered the 
whole of the distance between the Red River Settle- 
ment and Lake Athabasca in sixty-two days ; and 
what makes the achievement all the more remarkable 
is that he invariably insisted on "raising the road" 
himself — in other words, he marched on ahead of 
the party to mark out the track through the snow. 
This task is so exceedingly trying, that, as a rule, 
each member of a party undertakes it in turn for an 
hour at a time. 

The winter at Fort Chipewyan was very largely 
occupied in the construction of the two boats that were 
to take the party down to the Polar Sea. The Castor 
and Pollux^ as they were named, were light clinker- 
built craft of 24 feet keel and 6 feet beam, carrying two 
lug-sails apiece. They were duly launched at the end 
of May, and on June 1 the party set out on its way 
down to the sea. At Fort Norman four men were sent 
off to the Great Bear Lake to build winter quarters, 
establish a fishery, and make all the necessary prepara- 
tions for the return of the party. 

The voyage down the Mackenzie passed off without 
misadventure, and on July 9 the party found itself on 
the shores of the Polar Sea. The next fortnight was 
spent in verifying Franklin's discoveries, but on July 23 
they reached Return Reef, and there they began to 
open up new country. Fog, ice, and adverse winds 
now made their progress rather slow, and Simpson 



DEASE AND SIMPSON 105 

feared that if the conditions did not improve they 
would not reach Point Barrow before winter set in. 
Accordingly he determined to make a push for it, and 
selecting five men to accompany him, he started off to 
accomplish the rest of the journey on foot. The 
weather was bitterly cold, with a biting north-east wind 
and a thick fog. The coast, moreover, was intersected 
by countless salt creeks, through which it was neces- 
sary to wade, and the conditions altogether were as 
disagreeable as could well be imagined. 

On the second day of the journey, however, when 
they had proceeded about thirty miles, they had the 
good fortune to come upon an Eskimo encampment. 
Here Simpson succeeded in borrowing an " oomiack," 
or large family canoe, which proved of such material 
assistance that before long they were at their journey's 
end. 

The first part of their expedition was now safely 
accomplished, for they had surveyed the whole of the 
1 50 miles of coast-line between Return Reef and Point 
Barrow, thus linking up the discoveries of Beechey and 
Franklin. There was, therefore, nothing left for them 
to do but to make the best of their way up the Mac- 
kenzie River to the Great Bear Lake, which they 
duly reached on September 25. 

The winter passed without any misadventure what- 
ever. The usual Indians, of course, swarmed to the 
Fort and expected to be fed by the Englishmen. 
Fortunately, however, provisions were plentiful, and 
the party, unlike some of the preceding expeditions, 
was never in danger of starvation, in spite of the 
enormous appetites in which most of its members 



io6 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

rejoiced. The intense cold of these climates makes a 
liberal supply of animal food absolutely indispensable, 
and the daily ration served out to each man was 10 
or 12 pounds of venison, or, when they could be 
obtained, four or five whole fish weighing from 15 to 
20 pounds. Even this was found insufficient by some 
members of the party. 

As soon as summer began Simpson and his com- 
panions set out on their journey to the Coppermine 
River. Their way lay up Dease River and across the 
Dismal Lakes, and, as the ice had not yet given way 
to the thaw, the journey was attended by not a few 
difficulties. However, with characteristic enterprise, 
Simpson fixed his boats firmly on stout iron sledges, and 
having hoisted his sails sped away over the lakes at a 
good pace, to the immense astonishment of the natives. 

On reaching the Coppermine they found it greatly 
swollen with the melting snow and strewn with loose 
ice. Delay, however, was intolerable to the explorers, 
and they determined to make the best of their way 
down to the sea without more ado. Navigation was 
extremely dangerous, for the river went raging down 
between gigantic precipices, along whose base the 
breakers raged and foamed with overwhelming fury. 
Simpson's account of the shooting of Escape Rapid, 
which they reached at noon on the first day of their 
journey, is well worth quoting as showing the sort of 
difficulties with which they had to contend : " A glance 
at the overhanging cliffs," he says, " told us that there 
was no alternative but to run down with a full cargo. 
In an instant we were in the vortex, and, before we 
were aware, my boat was borne towards an isolated 



DEASE AND SIMPSON 107 

rock which the boiling surge almost concealed. To 
clear it on the outside was no longer possible ; our 
only chance was to run between it and the lofty 
eastern cliff. The word was passed, and every breath 
was hushed. A stream which dashed down upon us 
over the brow of the precipice, more than a hundred 
feet in height, mingled with the spray that whirled 
upwards from the rapid, forming a terrific shower bath. 
The pass was about eight feet wide, and the error of a 
single foot would have been instant destruction. As, 
guided by Sinclair's consummate skill, the boat shot 
safely through those jaws of death, an involuntary 
cheer arose. Our next impulse was to turn round to 
view the fate of our comrades behind. They had 
profited by the peril we incurred and kept without the 
treacherous rock in time. The waves there were still 
higher, and for a while we lost sight of our friends. 
When they emerged the first object visible was the 
bowman disgorging part of an intrusive wave which he 
had swallowed and looking half-drowned. Mr Dease 
afterwards told me that the spray, which completely 
enveloped them, formed a gorgeous rainbow round the 
boat." 

They reached the shores of the Polar Sea on July 1, 
and here they were doomed to disappointment. The 
winter had been one of exceptional length and severity, 
and in consequence the shores of the sea itself were so 
encumbered with ice as to make navigation almost 
impossible. They pushed slowly along, but they 
found both Coronation Gulf and Melville Sound com- 
pletely covered with solid ice, and by August 19, when 
the time was rapidly approaching for them to return, 



108 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

they were still three miles short of the furthest point 
reached by Franklin. 

There was no chance of proceeding any further in 
their boats, but Simpson was determined to set foot 
on land which had never been trodden by an European, 
so with a party of seven men he set out on a ten days' 
tramp eastward. Travelling was very painful, for the 
way lay mostly over loose stones and was intersected 
by numberless brooks and streams. Their labours, 
however, were well rewarded. Simpson had feared 
from the formation of the land along which he was 
travelling that the coast-line of the Polar Sea was not 
continuous. On August 23, however, he reached a 
lofty cape, on ascending which he discovered that in 
reality he had merely been travelling along the 
southern shore of a strait. Beneath his feet lay an 
immense sea rolling away eastward as far as the eye 
could reach, while to the north he saw an extensive 
land to which he gave the name of Queen Victoria 
Land. 

After travelling a few miles south-south-east the 
expedition was obliged to start on their way back, the 
five days allotted to the outgoing journey having now 
expired. On the 29th they rejoined the rest of the 
party at Boathaven, and on September 4 they began 
the journey up the Coppermine. Hitherto the ascent 
of the Coppermine by boat had been considered im- 
possible. Simpson, however, determined to prove that 
the reverse was the case, and with infinite labour he 
succeeded in towing the boats safely up all the rapids. 
On September 5 they reached a spot about four miles 
below the junction of Kendal River, which they con- 



DEASE AND SIMPSON 109 

sidered to be the nearest point to Fort Confidence. 
Here, accordingly, they dragged the boats out of the 
water, and leaving them high and dry in a wood, they 
made their way back to their winter quarters on foot, 
reaching their journey's end on September 14. 

There everything had been got in perfect readiness 
for the long winter. The buildings had been put in 
order, a quantity of dried venison had been purchased 
from the Indians, and several thousand fish had been 
caught and cured. Consequently they were in no 
danger of want, and spent their time in comparative 
comfort until June brought a release from the frost. 
As soon as it was possible they set off for the point 
on the Coppermine at which they had left the Castor 
and Pollux, and in due time they reached the Polar 
Sea. 

In the first week or so their progress was rather slow. 
The season was, however, far more open than was that 
of the preceding year and, on reaching Coronation 
Gulf, they found it, to their great delight, perfectly 
navigable. From that point they pushed on apace. 
On the night of the 20th they stopped at Boathaven, 
and thence, helped by a favouring wind, they ran 
rapidly along the west coast of Kent Peninsula to Cape 
Franklin, which they reached exactly a month earlier 
than Simpson's party had reached it in the preceding 
year. Here again they were favoured by fortune, for 
they found an open passage of water, two miles wide, 
along which the boats bowled merrily. They reached 
Cape Alexander on the 26th, and then, rounding the 
eastern extremity of Kent Peninsula, they ran along 
the shore which they had been previously obliged to 



no ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

traverse on foot, discovering and naming Melbourne 
Island and Roxborough Cape as they went. 

On the ioth they entered the strait which is now 
called by Simpson's name, and it was then that they 
realised that they were on the verge of linking up 
Franklin's discoveries with those of Back, for the rapid 
rush of the tide from the east told them that they were 
about to enter the open sea into which the Great Fish 
River disgorged its waters. On the 13th all doubts on 
this point were set at rest for, on rounding a very sharp 
cape, they saw before them a sandy desert which they 
knew to be Back's Ogle Point. 

By reaching the estuary of the Great Fish River they 
had practically accomplished the objects of their ex- 
pedition. Simpson, however, was by no means dis- 
posed to rest upon his laurels, and he determined to 
make an effort to discover whether or not the North 
American continent was linked to Boothia Felix or 
whether a strait connected the Boothia Gulf with the 
Arctic Sea. Accordingly, with his wonted energy, he 
selected three volunteers and set off on a short voyage 
of exploration in one of the boats. He was not destined, 
however, to succeed in his search, for on the 20th 
adverse winds compelled him to take shelter in a small 
river, which he named after the Castor and Pollux. To 
attempt to proceed any further would have been fool- 
hardy, and might well have resulted in the loss of the 
entire party. Accordingly, having decided his position 
as lat. 68° 28' N., long. 94 14' W., he turned back and 
reached Cape Britannia, where Dease had remained, 
on August 20. 

They decided to vary their homeward journey by 



DEASE AND SIMPSON in 

sailing along the coast of Victoria Land, which had 
never, of course, been explored. They made its nearest 
point, which they named Cape Colborne, on Septem- 
ber 6. The 7th and 8th were spent in sailing across 
two great bays, to which they gave the names of 
Cambridge and Wellington Bays, and on the 9th 
they were nearly opposite Cape Franklin, the shore 
of the American continent being then about twenty 
miles away. On the following day they made for 
Cape Barrow, having explored some 156 miles of the 
new country. 

The ascent of the Coppermine was difficult, as winter 
had now set in, and the ice on the rocks afforded very 
poor foothold to the men who were towing the boats. 
The journey was, however, accomplished in safety, and 
on September 25 they reached Fort Confidence. 
Thence they passed on to Fort Simpson, where the 
leader of the expedition proposed to spend the next 
few weeks in writing up the account of his voyages and 
discoveries. These were completed by December 2, 
on which date he set out for his own station at Red 
River Settlement, which he reached on February 2, hav- 
ing travelled 1900 miles on foot in those sixty-one days. 
This was destined to be the last journey which the 
indefatigable young traveller undertook, for within a 
few months he was lying in his grave. The exact cir- 
cumstances which led to the tragic death of one of the 
most brilliant and enthusiastic explorers England ever 
possessed have never been properly ascertained, and no 
one ever knew whether he was murdered or whether he 
committed suicide. 

Briefly put, the story is as follows : The Governor 



ii2 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

of the Hudson's Bay Company at that time was a 
relation of the explorer, who was not, however, too well 
disposed towards him. Though the expedition had 
accomplished great things, it seems that Governor 
Simpson thought that it ought to have accomplished 
more ; and in one of his letters to its leader he expressed 
his regret that the party was not prepared to spend an- 
other year in the Arctic regions, with a view to pushing 
its discoveries on in the direction of Fury and Hecla 
Strait. As the younger Simpson had already told him 
in one of his letters that his men were utterly worn out 
and his provisions exhausted, the tone adopted by the 
Governor seems to have been distinctly unreasonable. 
That his relative was perfectly prepared to prosecute 
his researches still further was obvious from an offer 
which he made to lead another expedition north in the 
following year, with a view to surveying Boothia Felix, 
and, if possible, to passing through Fury and Hecla 
Strait, and so making his way to Hudson's Bay. This 
offer was, however, entirely ignored by Governor 
Simpson, who, indeed, gave the young explorer to 
understand that, if another expedition were fitted out, 
the command would be given to someone else. 

Simpson was very much hurt by the Governor's 
attitude, and wrote him a somewhat strong letter 
upon the subject, with the result that he was 
ordered to repair to England immediately. The 
controversy seems to have affected the explorer's 
health very seriously indeed, and it is obvious from 
some of the letters that he wrote to the Governor that 
he was suffering from great mental excitement. Had he 
but known it, there was every prospect of his con- 



DEASE AND SIMPSON 113 

tinuing his excellent work as an explorer, for a letter 
which he had written to the directors of the Hudson's 
Bay Company suggesting a fresh voyage of discovery 
through the Gulf of Boothia had been very favourably 
considered by them, and they wrote him a formal 
reply appointing him to the command of a fresh ex- 
pedition within a few days of the date on which he set 
out on his homeward journey from the Red River 
Settlement. 

He took leave of his friends on June 6, 1840, and 
started off in the direction of St Peters with a party 
which consisted of James Bruce of the Red River 
Settlement, a father and son of the name of Legros, 
and John Bird. Bruce's sworn testimony as to the 
events which took place on the journey is to the 
following effect. On June 14 Simpson seemed to be 
restless and ill. He frequently expressed a desire 
to return to the Red River Settlement, and urged the 
others to go with him. He did not appear to be 
suffering from any particular complaint, but he wished, 
nevertheless, to consult a physician, and told his com- 
panions that he feared that he could not live much 
longer. Towards the evening Bruce, Bird, and the 
elder Legros were engaged in pitching the tent, stand- 
ing with their backs to their leader. Suddenly Bruce 
heard the report of a gun, and looking round, he saw 
that Simpson had shot Bird, who fell dead upon the 
spot. Simpson then turned his gun upon the elder 
Legros and fired at him, wounding him mortally, 
though death did not ensue immediately. When they 
were sufficiently recovered from their horror and 
amazement, Bruce and the younger Legros approached 



U4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Simpson, who told them that it had come to his know- 
ledge that Bird and Legros had formed a plot to kill 
him during the night for his papers, and that he had 
only acted in self-defence. Before he died Legros 
denied the existence of any such plot, and to this day 
it is not known whether or not Simpson had any 
ground for his suspicions. 

The young explorer was still standing with his gun 
in his hand, and Bruce and the younger Legros, 
fearing, apparently, that they might share the fate of 
their comrades, mounted their horses and rode back to 
find another and larger body of travellers whom they 
had left on the previous day, and who were encamped 
a few miles back. On reaching their friends they gave 
the alarm, and having been joined by five men they 
returned to the scene of the murders. As they reached 
the cart near which Simpson had been standing, they 
called him by name. The only answer that they received 
was the report of a gun and the whistle of a bullet. 
That Simpson had shot himself was the inevitable 
conclusion, but, with a view to frightening him if he 
should be still alive, they fired their guns as they 
approached the cart. The precaution was unnecessary, 
however, for, on drawing nearer, they found that 
Simpson had shot himself through the head. The 
bodies of the three men, Simpson, Legros, and Bird, 
were there and then buried in the same grave. 

Such is the story as told by Bruce, but it is im- 
possible to vouch for its truth as there was no corro- 
borative evidence, the younger Legros never having 
been examined. Having regard to the state of 
Simpson's health at the time, it is more than probable 



DEASE AND SIMPSON 115 

that he really believed that he was only acting in 
his own defence in shooting Bird and Legros. But 
whether he died by his own hand, or whether he was 
shot by Bruce or one of the party who returned with 
him, it is impossible to say. 



CHAPTER XII 
franklin's last voyage 

THE failure of Back's expedition in the Terror to 
accomplish anything of importance proved so 
discouraging to the Government that, for a while, they 
desisted from any further attempts to discover the 
North-West Passage, and turned their attention to the 
Antarctic instead. The brilliant success of Dease and 
Simpson's journey along the shores of the Polar Sea, 
however, had the effect of giving a fresh impetus to the 
public interest in Arctic exploration; so, when the 
Erebus and Terror returned from their voyage to the 
Antarctic, the authorities listened favourably to the 
representations of the Royal Geographical Society and 
of a number of men of science who were interested in 
the work, and decided to fit them out again for an 
expedition to the Polar seas. 

For the last seven years Franklin had been acting as 
Governor of Tasmania, but he returned at about the 
time when the new expedition was under discussion, 
and it was naturally felt that, as senior Arctic explorer, 
he ought to be given the command. Lord Haddington, 
then first Lord of the Admiralty, was at first rather 
chary of offering it to him, thinking that, after his long 
and brilliant career, he might well wish to spend the 
rest of his days in peace at home. " I might find a 



FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE 117 

good excuse for not letting you go, Sir John," he said, 
"in the rumour that tells me you are sixty years of 
age." " No, no, my lord," exclaimed Franklin, " I am 
only fifty-nine ! " So to everyone's delight the appoint- 
ment was duly made. 

The Erebus and Terror were fitted out for the service 
with all the most modern appliances. Provided as they 
were with engines of twenty horse-power and auxiliary 
screws, they were the first Arctic vessels to put the 
discovery of steam to practical use, for the engines of 
the Victory, as we have seen, were so crude that they 
had to be discarded. Naturally enough the authorities 
were flooded with applications for appointments to the 
ships, and they were able, in consequence, to select 
some of the most able officers in the navy for the 
service, among them being Commander Fitzjames, who 
had been through the China War • Crozier and Graham 
Gore, who had served under Parry and Ross ; Fairholme, 
Hodgson, and Des Vceux. 

Franklin's official instructions were to pass through 
Lancaster Sound with all possible despatch, wasting 
no time in examining openings to the northward, and, 
after reaching Cape Walker, to turn southward and 
eastward with a view to finding his way to Behring 
Strait. Should neither of these two routes prove 
practicable, he was to go northward up Wellington 
Channel in the second summer. 

The two ships sailed from the Thames on 
May 19, 1845, and were soon well on their way up 
Baffin Bay. Most of what we know of the early part 
of the voyage we owe to Commander Fitzjames, a 
delightful correspondent, who, in a series of letters to 



n8 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Mrs Coningham, gave some character sketches of his 
companions which are well worth preserving. Here is 
a passage which refers to Franklin. " I like a man 
who is in earnest. Sir John Franklin read the church 
service to-day, and a sermon, so very beautifully that I 
defy any man not to feel the force of what he would 
convey. The first Sunday he read was a day or two 
before we sailed, when Lady Franklin, his daughter, 
and niece attended. Everyone was struck with his 
extreme earnestness of manner, evidently proceeding 
from real conviction. . . . We are very fond of Sir 
John Franklin, who improves very much as we come 
to know more of him. He is anything but nervous 
or fidgety; in fact, I should say remarkable for 
energetic decision in sudden emergencies, but I 
should think he might be easily persuaded where he 
has not already formed a strong opinion." 

Here is a note on the purser. " I have just had a 
game of chess with the purser, Osmer, who is delight- 
ful. ... I was at first inclined to think that he was a 
stupid old man, because he had a chin and took snuff; 
but he is as merry-hearted as any young man, full of 
quaint, dry sayings, always good-humoured, always 
laughing, never a bore, takes his pinch after dinner, 
plays a rubber, and beats me at chess — and he is a 
gentleman." 

The subject of the next sketch to be quoted is 
Harry Goodsir, the assistant-surgeon of the Erebus, 
who, though still young, was already well known as 
a naturalist of more than ordinary ability. Before 
taking up his appointment to the expedition he had 
been curator of the Edinburgh museum. " I can't 



FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE 119 

make out," says Fitzjames, "why Scotchmen just 
caught always speak in a low, hesitating, monotonous 
tone of voice, which is not at all times to be under- 
stood ; this is, I believe, called ' cannyness.' Mr Good- 
sir is 'canny.' He is long and straight, and walks 
upright on his toes, with his hands tucked up in each 
jacket pocket. He is perfectly good-humoured, very 
well informed on general points, in natural history 
learned, was curator of the Edinburgh museum, appears 
to be about twenty-eight years of age, laughs delight- 
fully, cannot be in a passion, is enthusiastic about all 
'ologies, draws the insides of microscopic animals with 
an imaginary pointed pencil, catches phenomena in a 
bucket, looks at the thermometer and every other 
meter, is a pleasant companion and an acquisition to 
the mess." 

Crouch, the mate, " is a little black-haired, smooth- 
faced fellow, good-humoured in his own way ; writes, 
reads, works, draws, all quietly ; is never in the way of 
anybody, and always ready when wanted ; but I can 
find no remarkable point in his character, except, per- 
haps, that he is, I should think, obstinate. Stanley, 
the surgeon, ... is rather inclined to be good-looking, 
but fat, with jet-black hair, very white hands, which are 
always abominably clean, and the shirt sleeves tucked 
up, giving one unpleasant ideas that he would not mind 
cutting off one's leg immediately — if not sooner." 
Graham Gore, the first lieutenant, is " a man of great 
stability of character, a very good officer and the 
sweetest of tempers. He plays the flute dreadfully 
well, draws sometimes very well and sometimes very 
badly, but is altogether a capital fellow." 



120 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

The expedition was probably the happiest and the 
most united that ever set out from England, and some 
of Sir John's kindly spirit seems to have been infused 
into all the members of the party. As an example of 
the good feeling which pervaded the whole crew, a 
little story concerning Osmer, the purser, may be 
quoted from Fitzjames's diary. It occurred when the 
ships were off the Danish settlement of Disco, a spot 
where the scenery is grand but unutterably bleak and 
desolate. Fitzjames happened to go on deck at mid- 
night, and there he found Osmer indulging in a little 
pas-seul. " What a happy fellow you are ! " exclaimed 
Fitzjames, " always in a good humour." " Well, sir," 
said the purser, " if I am not happy here, I don't know 
where else I could be." 

The first few days of July were spent off Disco, 
taking in supplies and generally making the last pre- 
parations for the Arctic journey. At this time the 
prospects of success seemed to be unusually bright. 
The season at Disco was the mildest and earliest ever 
known, and, in their last letters home, the officers asked 
their relations, in jest, to address their future corre- 
spondence to Petropaulovski, a seaport beyond the 
Behring Strait, on the coast of Asiatic Russia. 

There is a passage in one of these letters, written 
by Lieutenant Fairholme, which we cannot refrain 
from quoting, as it forms the last tribute to Franklin 
that was penned during his life. " On board," it runs, 
" we are as comfortable as it is possible to be. I need 
hardly tell you how much we are all delighted with 
our captain. He has, I am sure, won not only the 
respect, but the love of every person on board by his 



FRANKLIN'S LAST VOYAGE 121 

amiable manner and kindness to all, and his influence 
is always employed for some good purpose, both among 
the officers and men. He has been most successful in 
his selection of officers, and a more agreeable set could 
hardly be found. Sir John is in much better health 
than when we left England, and really looks ten years 
younger. He takes an active part in everything that 
goes on, and his long experience in such services as 
this makes him a most valuable adviser." 

On July 12 Franklin wrote his last official letter 
to the Admiralty. " The ships," he says, " are now 
complete with supplies of every kind for three years ; 
they are, therefore, very deep ; but happily we have no 
reason to expect much sea as we proceed farther. . . . 
It is unnecessary to assure their lordships of the energy 
and zeal of Captain Crozier, Commander Fitzjames, 
and the officers and men with whom I have the happi- 
ness of being employed on this service." 

On the same day the Erebus and Terror sailed away 
north-west up the Waigat Strait. On the 26th they 
were sighted by the whaler The Prince of Wales, moored 
to an iceberg near the south entrance to Melville Bay, 
waiting for a favourable opportunity to round the 
middle ice and enter Lancaster Sound. The master 
of the whaler, Captain Dannett, was invited to dine 
with Sir John on the following day, but a favourable 
breeze sprang up, and the ships parted company. 
Captain Dannett was the last white man to set eyes 
on the ill-fated Erebus and Terror. 



CHAPTER XIII 

RAE AND THE BOOTHIA PENINSULA 

IN order to preserve the chronological order of 
events, it is now necessary to leave the Franklin 
expedition for a while, and to take up the thread of the 
exploration of Northern America where it was dropped 
by Dease and Simpson. It will be remembered that 
shortly before his untimely death Simpson had written 
a letter to the Governors of the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany, suggesting that he should conduct an expedition 
along the undiscovered shores that lay between the 
Castor and Pollux River and Fury and Hecla Strait. 
Though he was destined never to know it, the plan was 
very favourably received by the directors, and their 
letter, conferring on him the sole command of the 
expedition, reached America very shortly after his 
death. 

The immediate result of this sad event was that all 
plans for prosecuting the exploration of Northern 
America were held in abeyance for some years — till, 
indeed, 1845, when the news that England was fitting 
out a fresh expedition, with a view to discovering the 
North-West Passage, urged the Company on to further 
efforts. The command of the new expedition was offered 
by Sir George Simpson, who was still Governor-in- 
Chief of the Company's territories, to Dr John Rae, 
then new to Arctic exploration, though he subsequently 



RAE AND BOOTHIA PENINSULA 123 

proved his worth, not only by the success which he 
achieved on the present journey, but also by the good 
work that he did in his search for Franklin. 

The plan of campaign arranged by the Company 
differed materially from that originally propounded 
by Simpson. Simpson had proposed to travel east- 
ward from the Castor and Pollux River and, after 
surveying Boothia Felix, to make his way, if possible, 
to Hudson's Bay. Rae's expedition, on the other 
hand, was to set out from Hudson's Bay and to 
make its way up Rowe's Welcome to Repulse Bay. 
There it was to cross the isthmus connecting the 
Melville Peninsula with the mainland, which, if the 
Eskimo stories were to be believed, was not more 
than three days' journey, and, on reaching the sea 
on the other side, it was to push on till it had 
reached the point where either Ross or Dease and 
Simpson had left off. It must be remembered that 
at this time it was not known whether Boothia Felix 
was an island or a peninsula. If it proved to be the 
former, Rae was to make his way through the passage 
that divided it from the mainland and so into the 
Arctic Ocean. If the latter, he was to travel up its 
western shores until he reached some point that had 
been visited by the Rosses in the Victory. 

The journey was likely to prove adventurous, for 
there was no degree of certainty that the party would 
be able to obtain sufficient provisions to keep them 
from starving. Rae was only to take two small boats 
with him, so that it would be impossible for him to 
equip himself with any great quantity of food, and he 
would be obliged to depend on such poor supplies as 



i2 4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the barren country had to offer. As, therefore, it 
seemed more than probable that the party would have 
to face the unpleasing alternatives of being either starved 
or frozen to death, he had some difficulty at first in 
obtaining volunteers. 

On June 1846, however, the preliminary difficulties 
having been overcome, Rae, with ten men, set out from 
York Factory. His boats, which were named the North 
Pole and the Magnet, were strong, clinker-built craft, 
22 feet long by 7 feet 6 inches broad. In addition 
to the ordinary equipment, he carried an oiled canvas 
canoe and one of Halkett's air-boats which had never 
been tried on one of these expeditions before, and 
proved eminently satisfactory. 

The first part of the journey was necessarily slow, as 
in many cases the sea was still blocked with closely- 
packed ice, which needed careful negotiation. On 
July 24, however, the boats rounded Cape Hope and 
entered Repulse Bay, where the original exploration 
was to begin. On landing in Gibson Cove, they came 
upon a party of Eskimos, from whom they learnt the 
good news that the isthmus was not more than forty 
miles across, and that over a full thirty-five miles of this 
distance a chain of lakes afforded a waterway. 

On the following morning the ladies of the tribe paid 
Rae a state visit. " They were all tattooed on the face," 
he writes, "the form on each being nearly the same, 
viz. a number of curved lines drawn from between the 
eyebrows up over the forehead, two lines across the 
cheek from near the nose towards the ear, and a 
number of diverging curved lines from the lower lip 
towards the chin and lower jaw. Their hands and 



RAE AND BOOTHIA PENINSULA 125 

arms were much tattooed from the tip of the finger 
to the shoulder. Their hair was collected in two large 
bunches, one on each side of the head, and, a piece of 
stick about ten inches long and half an inch thick being 
placed among it, a strip of different-coloured deer-skin 
is wound round it in a spiral form, producing far from 
an unpleasing effect. They all had ivory combs of 
their own manufacture, and deer-skin clothes with the 
hair outwards ; the only difference between their dresses 
and those of the men being that the coats of the former 
had much larger hoods (which are used for carrying 
children), in having a flap before as well as behind, and 
also in the greater capacity of their boots, which come 
high above the knee, and are kept up by being fastened 
to the girdle." Curiously enough, one of these women 
had visited the Fury and Hecla twenty-three years 
before, and among her most prized possessions were 
some beads which Parry had given her. 

With immense labour the boats were dragged up the 
stream which connects Repulse Bay with the chain of 
lakes, and the serious work of the expedition began. 
Rae found that he had not been misled by the stories 
of the Eskimos, and by August 1 he was on the shores 
of Committee Bay, the southernmost arm of Prince 
Regent Inlet. His first hope was that he would be 
able to sail round the bay and survey its shores. Ice 
and fog, however, rendered this quite impossible, so he 
decided, as there seemed to be no chance of the ice 
breaking up that season, to turn back to Repulse Bay 
and to hope for better luck in the following summer. 

Game, fortunately, was plentiful at that time of the 
year, and the doctor, who was an enthusiastic sports- 



126 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

man and an excellent shot, soon relieved his party of 
any dread that they might have of death from starva- 
tion. The sporting-book for September showed that 
63 deer, 5 hares, 1 seal, 172 patridges, and 116 salmon 
and trout were brought into Fort Hope — the name 
given to their winter quarters — while in September he 
accounted for 69 deer. Fuel, however, was exceedingly 
scarce, and, as bitterly cold weather set in in the middle 
of October, the party was put to no small inconvenience. 
At first the frost was hailed as an unmixed blessing, 
for it hardened the wet clay with which the walls of the 
house had been dressed, and made the place weather- 
proof. Anything that was at all damp, however, was 
instantly frozen solid, and when Rae attempted to open 
some books which had been lying on a shelf, he found 
their leaves a solid mass. As fuel grew scarcer, the 
doctor forbad its use for any purpose except cooking, 
and a member of the party who wished to dry his wet 
clothes was obliged to take them to bed with him. The 
evaporation arising from them always froze on the 
blankets, which in consequence generally sparkled 
with hoar frost. 

Almost the only form of exercise which the party 
was able to take was an occasional game of football 
on the snow. These games were not unattended by 
difficulties, for the snow was so hard that several pairs 
of heels were usually to be seen in the air at the same 
time, while the air was so bitter that the players were 
obliged to rub their faces continually in order to 
prevent them from being frost-bitten. A part of the 
time was also spent by the men in mastering the art of 
building snow houses after the Eskimo fashion, an 



BAE AND BOOTHIA PENINSULA 127 

accomplishment which proved of inestimable service to 
them later on when they were engaged in the explora- 
tion of Boothia and Melville Peninsula. 

At this time the Eskimos of the neighbourhood 
engaged a good deal of Rae's attention. They appear 
to have been an extraordinarily hardy race, who suffered 
no inconvenience even in the bitterest cold. On one 
occasion he found a member of the tribe engaged in 
repairing the runners of his sledge. "The substance 
used," he writes, " was a mixture of moss chopped up 
very fine, and snow soaked in water, lumps of which are 
firmly pressed on the sledge with the bare hand, and 
smoothed over so as to have an even surface. The 
process occupied the man nearly an hour, during the 
whole of which time he did not put his hands in his 
mits, nor did he appear to feel the cold much, although 
the temperature was 30° below zero." On another 
occasion he paid a visit to their camp, where he acquired 
the interesting intelligence that it was their custom to 
strip off all their clothes before retiring to bed even in the 
depth of winter. They kept their huts comparatively 
warm, however, by an ever-burning lamp, and Rae 
observed with some astonishment that, during the visit 
in question, his waistcoat thawed. That article of his 
attire had been frozen solid some time before by the 
congelation of his breath, and had had no opportunity 
of returning to its normal condition in his own comfort- 
less quarters. 

On April 5 Rae started off on his second journey 
across the isthmus which now bears his name, his object 
being to explore the western shores of Committee Bay 
and to discover whether any waterway led westward 



128 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

from it to the Arctic seas. With the details of the 
journey we need scarcely concern ourselves, for it was 
not enlivened by any incident of special interest. It 
will be sufficient to say that his efforts were attended 
by complete success, for on April 18 he reached Lord 
Mayor's Bay, the most southern point reached by Ross, 
thus completing the discovery of the southern and 
western shores of Prince Regent's Inlet, and proving 
that Boothia was a peninsula. 

Having duly taken possession of the newly-discovered 
country in the name of the Queen, he set out on the 
return journey to Fort Hope, which he reached on 
May 5. The eastern shores of Prince Regent Inlet 
still remained to be explored, and as the season was 
early, Rae decided to waste no time in setting about 
that part of his task. Accordingly he only rested at 
Fort Hope for a few days, and then, taking with him 
four men and a good supply of provisions, he set off 
again. By May 27 they were close to Cape Ellice, 
which is within ten miles or so of Fury and Hecla 
Strait. The journey, however, had been exceedingly 
exhausting and food was running short, so Rae decided 
that it would be madness to attempt to push his 
exploration any further. Accordingly the party turned 
homewards again and arrived at Fort Hope early in 
June, tired and very thin, but in excellent spirits. 
They finally reached York Factory on September 6, 
after a most successful journey, in the course of which 
they had discovered several hundred miles of unknown 
coast-line and had considerably reduced the area in 
which the North-West Passage must be sought. 



CHAPTER XtV 

THE FRANKLIN SEARCH BEGUN 

IT was in the summer of 1847 that serious doubts 
concerning the safety of the Franklin expedition 
were first entertained and the Government decided 
to take steps towards its relief. As we have already- 
seen, the Erebus and Terror were last sighted in Lan- 
caster Sound, and there was no means of knowing in 
what direction they had sailed from that day onwards. 
Accordingly, it was thought best to send out relief 
parties from the east, through Lancaster Sound, from 
the west, through Behring Strait, and from the south, 
to search the northern shores to America. 

The first of these to start was that which was to 
attempt to meet Franklin by way of Behring Strait. 
The Herald (Captain Kellett), a survey ship of 500 
tons was already near the scene of action, and it was 
decided to reinforce her with the Plover, a store ship 
of 213 tons, under Commander Moore, and to send 
these two ships on a voyage round the North American 
coast to the Mackenzie River. 

The Plover proved herself to be a very poor sailor, 
and it was not until June 1849 that the two ships met 
at their appointed rendezvous in Kotzebue Sound. 
Here they were joined by the Nancy Dawson, a small 
yacht owned and commanded by Mr Robert Sheddon, 
who had sailed north with a view to taking part in the 

I "9 



i 3 o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

search. The three ships sailed north in company, and, 
on reaching Wainwright Inlet, despatched three boats, 
filled to the brim with provisions and commanded by 
Lieutenant Pullen, on the long journey to the Mac- 
kenzie River. Mr Sheddon determined to accompany 
Lieutenant Pullen for a part of his journey, but the 
Herald and Plover sailed on and explored the waters 
to the north of Behring Strait. Beyond discovering 
the two islands which now bear their names, however, 
they accomplished but little. 

By September 2 the two government ships and the 
Nancy Dawson were all lying in Kotzebue Sound, 
where it had been decided that the Plover should spend 
the winter. After supplying the wants of her com- 
panion ship, the Herald sailed away south with the 
Nancy Dawson, reaching Mazatlan, on the coast of 
Mexico, at the beginning of October. Mr Sheddon, 
who had been in failing health for some time, did not 
survive the winter. 

In the meanwhile, Moore, of the Plover, opened up 
communications with the natives round Kotzebue 
Sound in the hope that he might obtain tidings of 
Franklin. The result was that circumstantial tales 
concerning white men travelling in the interior, were 
poured into his ears, and, in attempting to verify these, 
Bedford Pirn very nearly lost his life. Neither then, 
however, nor in the summer, when the Herald and 
Plover made a cruise round the coast, could they dis- 
cover that these stories had any foundation in fact, 
nor did their search give them any reason to suppose 
that Franklin and his party had approached the shores 
along which they were sailing. 



THE FRANKLIN SEARCH BEGUN 1 3 1 

Lieutenant Pullen's boat expedition to the |Mac- 
kenzie met with no better success. Cramped up in 
open boats which were in constant danger of being 
wrecked by gales or the drifting ice, he and his men 
suffered tortures from cold and exposure, and the 
difficulties and dangers of their 1500-mile journey were 
enhanced by the unfriendliness of the natives. The 
winter was spent at the various stations of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, and, in the following spring, Pullen set 
out again for the shores of the Polar Sea. The con- 
ditions, however, were such as to preclude any possi- 
bility of success, and he was obliged to turn back 
before he had even reached the point at which his 
search proper was to have begun. 

The conduct of the first overland journey was en- 
trusted to Richardson, who, with Rae as his lieutenant, 
was commissioned to search the coast of North America 
from the Mackenzie to the Coppermine. The Polar 
Sea was reached without misadventure, but from that 
point onwards the journey proved dangerous and 
difficult, as owing to the lateness of the spring they 
were obliged to cache their boats and make a great 
part of it on foot. In the following year Rae returned 
to the mouth of the Coppermine only to find that the 
natives had discovered the boats and had broken them 
up for the sake of the copper fastenings. Any sea 
voyage was, therefore, out of the question, and, after 
cross-examining the Eskimos and sweeping the shores 
of Wollaston Land with a telescope, he was obliged to 
return to headquarters at Fort Confidence. 

The first two attempts at conducting the search 
through Lancaster Sound were not a conspicuous sue- 



132 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

cess. Sir James Clark Ross started off in the Enter- 
prise and Investigator and explored most of Prince 
Regent Inlet and the northern gulf of Boothia, but 
without obtaining any clues to Franklin's fate, while, 
in the following year, Saunders, who was sent out in 
the North Star with provisions for Ross, was caught in 
the ice and never succeeded in reaching his destination. 

In 185 1, however, the search was prosecuted with 
far greater vigour, and no fewer than five expeditions 
left British and American shores almost simultaneously. 
Of these, the Government sent out two, one consisting 
of four ships, the Resolute and the Assistance, with 
their steam tenders, the Pioneer and the Intrepid, com- 
manded by Captain Horatio Austin, with Captain 
Ommaney, Lieutenant Osborn, and Lieutenant Cator 
under him, and the other of two whalers, the Lady 
Franklin and the Sophia, under William Penny, a 
whaler of great repute, who, it was hoped, would meet 
with rather more success in battling with the ice than 
did his predecessors, Ross and Saunders. Two private 
expeditions also set out from England, one of them, 
the Prince Albert, having been equipped by Lady 
Franklin, while the other, the Felix, was placed under 
the command of Ross. The American expedition 
consisted of the Advance and the Rescue,vfith Lieutenant 
De Haven at the head of affairs. 

Unfortunately, all of these expeditions had one 
common objective — to pass up Lancaster Sound and 
examine the shores of Wellington Channel, the south- 
east entrance to which they reached almost simultan- 
eously. It was now that the first traces of the missing 
explorers were found, for, going ashore on Beechey 



THE FRANKLIN SEARCH BEGUN 133 

Island on August 23, Ommaney discovered signs that 
a party of white men had encamped there, and Penny, 
examining the spot four days later, came upon the 
graves of four men belonging to the Erebus and Terror. 
In addition to the graves there was a hut, some pieces 
of rope of the pattern used in the Navy, and such mis- 
cellaneous odds and ends as torn mits, fragments of 
writing paper, meat-tins, and coal-bags, but, search as 
they would, they could find no sign of any written 
document such as might give some hint as to the 
direction which Franklin had taken on leaving his 
winter quarters. At Cape Riley again traces were 
found in abundance, but no information of any value 
was forthcoming. 

Leaving his companions to follow up these dis- 
coveries, Forsyth instantly made his way back to 
England. De Haven also intended to return home, 
but the ice intervened, and the American ships were 
firmly beset before they had left Wellington Channel. 
From that time onwards their experiences were much 
like those of the Terror. Drifting northward with the 
ice, they were carried up to Grinnell Land, which had 
never been sighted before, and then, the drift changing 
to the south, they were borne down Wellington 
Channel along Lancaster Sound, and into Baffin Bay, 
till, after covering a distance of over a thousand miles 
in this fashion, they were finally released in July. 

There was now nothing for the other three parties to 
do but to find winter quarters, whence they might 
prosecute the search as soon as spring made it possible 
for them to send out sledging parties. The Lady 
Franklin, the Sophia, and the Felix, therefore, put into 



134 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Assistance Bay, at the south end of Cornwallis Land, 
while Austin and his squadron made for Griffith Island, 
where they were frozen in in September. 

It was Penny's special duty to explore the shores of 
Wellington Channel, and, as soon as the worst of the 
winter was over, he and Petersen started out with this end 
in view. As they pushed northward, they became more 
and more convinced that the channel led into a great 
open sea, and they had already determined to pursue 
their investigations further in this direction as soon as 
summer should have released the ships, when, to their 
amazement, on rounding a headland, they came upon 
a great channel of water, stretching away for at least 
twenty-five miles to the northward, and probably 
further. Racing back to the ship with all possible 
speed, they obtained a boat and succeeded in dragging 
it over the ice to the scene of their discovery. Un- 
fortunately, however, contrary winds and drifting floes 
made it impossible to proceed any further, and they 
were obliged to turn back without exploring the water- 
way and its shores. 

In the meanwhile Austin was pushing on his work 
with tremendous vigour, and to him and to his able junior 
officer, M'Clintock, must belong the credit of bringing the 
art of sledging to a higher pitch of perfection than had 
ever been attained before. The autumn was spent in 
establishing depots of provisions along the routes which 
were to be followed in the spring, and in examining 
the southern shores of Cornwallis Land in the hope 
that some traces of Franklin might be found there. 
It was in the middle of April that two great sledge 
parties started out under Ommaney and M'Clintock to 




s < 



THE FRANKLIN SEARCH BEGUN 135 

pursue the search to the south and east. Ommaney 
discovered and explored the northern shores of Prince 
of Wales' Land, which lay in the route where Franklin 
had been instructed to seek for the North-West 
Passage. He found, however, that the sea was so 
shallow and the ice so old that by no possibility could 
the Erebus and Terror have approached the shores. 
During his sixty days' absence from the ship he 
covered 480 miles and explored 205 miles of new 
coast. M'Clintock's objective was Melville Island, 
which had not been visited since Parry wintered there, 
but, though he covered 770 miles during his eighty-one 
days' absence, he found no trace of the explorers. 
Other parties sent out from the ships made important 
geographical discoveries, but, so far as the main object 
was concerned, their efforts were as fruitless as were 
those of the two big sledge expeditions. 

As soon as the ice broke up, Penny approached 
Austin with a suggestion that one of his steam tenders 
should explore the northern half of Wellington 
Channel. Austin, however, did not think that any 
useful purpose would be served thereby, and, as he 
was not prepared to spend another winter in the ice 
the whole squadron returned home. 

In the same summer the Prince Albert, which, it will 
be remembered, had sailed for home with tidings of the 
discovery of Franklin's first winter quarters, set out 
once more under the command of Captain Kennedy, 
with a French volunteer, Lieutenant J. R. Bellot, as 
second in command. It was while he was examining 
the northern shores of Prince Regent's Inlet that 
Kennedy's career was very nearly brought to an un- 



136 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

timely close, for, with four companions, he became 
separated from the ships, and for a long time there 
seemed no prospect of his being able to rejoin her. 
Fortunately, he found that the stores which Ross had 
left at Somerset House in 1832 were in good condition, 
and there he and his companions remained for six 
weeks, at the end of which time Bellot succeeded in 
rescuing them. In the spring the two officers made a 
brilliant sledge journey, in the course of which they 
discovered that Brentford Bay was really a strait — 
which Kennedy promptly named after his companion — 
and travelled round the whole coast of North Somerset. 
In spite of their efforts, however, they did not light 
upon a single trace of Franklin and his men. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE VOYAGES OF COLLINSON AND M'CLURE 

IT will be remembered that, in organising the 
Franklin search, the Government determined to 
send out expeditions from three points of the compass, 
east, west, and south. The first group was to follow in 
Franklin's tracks, the second was to attempt to meet 
him by way of Behring Strait, and the third was to 
search the North American coast in the hope that he 
might have found his way thither. As we have seen, 
the Herald and Plover had already been sent to 
Behring Strait, but the authorities felt that there was 
ample room for another expedition in that direction, 
so in 1849 they refitted the Enterprise and Investigator, 
and, putting them under the command of Captain 
Richard Collinson, C.B., and Captain J. Le Mesurier 
M'Clure, they despatched them on this hazardous 
service. Though Collinson was nominally leader of 
the expedition, M'Clure actually became its central 
figure, and it is with his doings that we shall have 
principally to deal. 

M'Clure was a fine seaman and a man of indomitable 
courage, but, as we shall see presently, he possessed 
almost more than his fair share of that peculiarly 
British quality of never knowing when he was beaten, 
and he came near, in consequence, to sacrificing the 

lives of every member of his expedition. 

137 



138 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

The two ships set sail from the Thames on January 
10, 1850, but early in February they parted company, 
and did not meet again till they reached Magellan 
Bay, though, curiously enough, they had crossed the 
line on the same day. On the evening of the day on 
which they left the Bay they were separated by a gale, 
never to meet again. 

The Investigator was rather the better ship of the 
two, and she entered Behring Strait considerably in 
advance of her companion. Here M'Clure fell in first 
with the Plover under Commander Moore, by whom 
he sent a message home to England saying that he 
was making for Banks Land and was provisioned for 
three years, and later with the Herald. Kellett, who 
commanded the latter ship, told him that nothing had 
yet been heard of the Enterprise, and ordered him to 
await her arrival in accordance with his official in- 
structions. This plan, however, by no means com- 
mended itself to M'Clure, so, signalling back "Important 
duty ; cannot on my own responsibility," he sailed on 
his way. Kellett ought, no doubt, to have insisted on 
M'Clure obeying orders, but he was very awkwardly 
situated. He knew that the Investigator was on its 
way to succour Franklin, and that a winter's delay 
might ruin its chances of success, and, naturally enough, 
he did not like to incur the grave responsibility of 
stopping her in her work of humanity. 

The main pack was sighted on August 2, but 
M'Clure was fortunate enough to find open water 
to the south of it, and he was soon round Point 
Barrow and sailing in waters which had never been 
travelled by a ship before. Navigation was very far 



COLLINSON AND M'CLURE 139 

from easy, for the sea was covered with detached 
floes which, driven onward by the wind, came charging 
down upon the ship with tremendous force, setting her 
aquiver from stem to stern, and often endangering the 
safety of her masts. 

Whenever it was possible M'Clure sent parties 
ashore to erect cairns and to open up communications 
with any natives that they might find. From these he 
gleaned one valuable piece of information, namely, 
that they had never before seen a " big oomiak " like 
the Investigator. The Erebus and Terror, therefore, 
could not have reached these shores. 

After passing Return Reef navigation became more 
perilous than ever, owing to the innumerable shoals 
composed of driftwood and the deposits of the neigh- 
bouring rivers. On one occasion the Investigator went 
aground and lay for some time in imminent danger of 
being crushed to matchwood by the drifting floes. 
With all possible speed, a liberal supply of provisions 
was transferred to the boats, one of which unfortunately 
capsized and sixteen casks of salt meat went to the 
bottom. The loss was very severely felt later on. 

Sailing with great care and circumspection, M'Clure 
succeeded in reaching Cape Parry. Here a south- 
easterly wind sprang up which cleared the sea of 
ice and gave him an open way to the north, of 
which he was not slow to take advantage. In a 
few hours the welcome cry of " land on the port bow " 
rang out, and Banks' Land came in sight. At first 
there was some doubt as to what this new land 
might be. Some thought that it was a continuation of 
Wollaston Land, others held that it was a part of 



140 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Banks' Land. In his uncertainty M'Clure gave it the 
name of Baring Island, but when, later on, it was 
found to be the southern extension of the land sighted 
by Parry from Melville Island in 1819-20, its original 
name was, of course, retained. 

M'Clure's delight was completed when he found a 
perfectly open channel extending along the shores of 
the new land in a north-easterly direction. Up this 
channel he sailed, hardly daring to hope what was 
actually the truth, that this was the North-West Passage. 
His doubts were not, however, to be set at rest im- 
mediately, for thirty miles from the point at which the 
channel joins Barrow Strait his career v/as summarily 
checked by a barrier of ice which there was no pene- 
trating, and all that he could do was to make up his 
mind to spend the winter where he was. 

The early days of October brought with them the 
exceedingly unpleasant discovery that 500 lbs. of 
preserved meat were putrid and only fit to be thrown 
away. A little later, an examination of his stores 
showed him that another 424 lbs. were unfit for food, 
bringing the loss up to nearly a thousand pounds, in 
addition to the sixteen casks of salt meat which had 
fallen into the sea earlier in the voyage. The matter 
was especially serious as he had assured the Admiralty 
that he was fully provisioned for three years. 

However, there was nothing for him to do but to 
make his crew forget the misfortune as quickly as pos- 
sible, so he set about sending out expeditions along the 
shores of Prince of Wales' Strait, as he had named the 
channel which he had just discovered, and through 
Banks' Land. It was during one of these that he 



COLLINSON AND M'CLURE 141 

actually discovered the North-West Passage and so 
earned the ten thousand pounds offered by the Govern- 
ment. This event took place on October 26th, when 
M'Clure, having ascended a high hill found that, as he 
had hoped, Prince Albert Land trended away to the 
eastward, while Banks' Land terminated in a low pro- 
montory about twelve miles from the point on which 
he stood. Away beyond the northern entrance to 
Prince of Wales' Strait he gazed across the frozen 
waters of Melville Sound, in which Barrow Strait 
terminates. 

The dark days of winter passed away without misad- 
venture, and, with the return of spring, M'Clure decided 
to send out sledge parties in search of Franklin. Few 
of those whose lot is cast in warmer climates can 
realise the dangers and discomforts of a long sledge 
journey in the Arctic regions. Sherard Osborn knew 
them well, and he gives so eloquent a description of 
them that we may quote it for the benefit of the 
uninitiated. 

" If they should feel cold," he writes, " they must be 
patient, for until their return to the ship they will have 
no fire to warm them. Should their parched tongues 
cleave to their mouths, they must swallow snow to 
allay their thirst, for water there is none. Should their 
health fail, pity is all that their comrades can give 
them, for the sledge must move on its daily march. If 
hungry, they must console themselves by looking for- 
ward to being better fed when the travelling is over, 
for the rations are, necessarily, in sledge journeys, 
weighed off to an ounce. In short, from the time they 
leave the ship till their return to it, the service is ever 



H2 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

one of suffering and privation, which call for the utmost 
endurance and most zealous energy." 

Three parties were sent out, which surveyed the 
coasts of Banks' Land and Prince Albert Land, but 
their labours were fated to be unrewarded, for not a 
trace of the missing expedition could they discover. 

As soon as the thaw released him, M'Clure naturally 
made an effort to complete the North-West Passage. 
Ice and contrary winds, however, rendered it impossible 
for him to make his way through Prince of Wales' 
Strait, so he put about and determined to try to find 
a passage round the western coast of Banks' Land, 
and so into Melville Sound. At first all went well, but 
when he reached lat. 73 55', the highest point that he 
had yet attained, he was once more brought to a stand- 
still. The channel of open water became narrower, the 
coast became more dangerous, and towering hills of ice 
hemmed them in on every side, threatening the ship 
with instant destruction. 

At one time M'Clure feared that he would be obliged 
to spend the winter in this desolate situation, but for- 
tunately a southerly wind arose which drove the ice off 
the shore and allowed him to proceed on his way. 
Weeks of valuable time had been wasted in the pack, 
and there was now nothing for him to do but to look 
for suitable winter quarters, which he eventually found 
in Mercy Bay. 

Although, dreading lest his stay in the Arctic regions 
might be prolonged indefinitely, M'Clure found it neces- 
sary to put his men on rather short rations, the winter 
was passed comfortably enough, and, as soon as spring 
came round, he set out with seven men across the ice- 



COLLINSON AND M'CLURE 143 

pack to Melville Island in the hope that he might find 
another of the search expeditions stationed there. To 
his intense disappointment, all that he discovered was 
M'Clintock's record of his visit of the previous year. 
Of ships or human beings there was not another trace. 
Fortunately for himself he left a notice there describing 
the position of the Investigator in Mercy Bay, and this 
ultimately proved his salvation. 

When he returned to his ship he found that matters 
were not going too well with his men. They had, it is 
true, been fairly successful with their hunting, but 
scurvy had broken out and Dr Armstrong already had 
thirteen patients in his care. Worse, however, was to 
come, for July brought no sign of the desired thaw. 
Ice still choked the bay, thick ice covered the sound, 
and an ominous blink glowed in the sky. Early in 
September the frost once more had the bay in its grip 
and the unfortunate men realised that they were de- 
stined to spend a third winter in the ice. 

M'Clure was now faced by a very difficult problem. 
In the first place, his pride and his sense of duty bade 
him to save his ship, which was still in perfect condi- 
tion. In the second place, he felt that he could hardly 
ask his men to stay by him on the chance of release in 
the following summer. His solution of the problem 
cannot be regarded as entirely satisfactory. Calling 
his men on to the quarter deck one day in the early 
winter, he told them that he had decided that, as soon 
as spring came round, he would send away half of the 
crew in two divisions. One of these was to make for 
the mouth of Prince of Wales' Strait, where he had left 
a boat, and thence to the coast of America, while the 



i 4 4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

other was to march for Wellington Channel, where, 
he hoped, that they would be picked up by a 
whaler. 

Armstrong knew that the men were quite unfit for 
such a journey, and told his commander so in no uncer- 
tain terms, but without producing the least effect. 
M'Clure was an incurable optimist and never could be 
induced to believe that his men were not capable of 
performing the impossible, so, with a view to ensuring 
a fairly adequate supply of provisions for the travelling 
parties, he cut down the rations once more. The result 
was that the whole crew lived in a state of perpetual 
hunger. The scurvy patients grew worse and those 
who had, up to the present, remained healthy, sickened 
rapidly. To add to their discomforts, the winter was 
one of the coldest on record, and on one occasion the 
thermometer registered ninety-nine degrees of frost. 

Unfit though his men were for the service he contem- 
plated for them, M'Clure set about making the final 
preparations for the expeditions. These were suffi- 
ciently extraordinary to startle even Dr Armstrong, 
accustomed as he was to his leader's vagaries, for 
M'Clure informed him one day that it was his intention 
to dispatch the weaker half of the crew from the vessel 
and bade him make the necessary selection. Arm- 
strong could only do as he was told, and, with a sad 
heart, he picked out thirty of the most scorbutic 
members of the ship's company, and told them off into 
two divisions of fifteen each. As a final protest against 
what he evidently considered to be little short of 
murder, he and his assistant, Mr Piers, recorded in a 
letter their conviction that the men could not survive 



COLL1NSON AND MCLURE 145 

such a journey. This, however, had as little effect as 
his earlier representations. 

Early in April the gloom that had settled upon the 
ship was deepened by the first appearance of death, 
for one of the seamen, John Boyle, fell a victim to 
scurvy after only one day's illness. Fortunately, how- 
ever, the clouds were soon to break, for, while M'Clure 
and Lieutenant Haswell were superintending the work 
of hewing a grave for Boyle out of the frozen earth, 
they were amazed to see a strange man coming towards 
them across the ice. So far as they could tell he was 
no member of their own crew, and their astonishment 
was increased when he began rushing across the ice, 
flinging up his arms and shouting wildly. 

" In the name of God, who are you ? " cried M'Clure, 
when he came within speaking distance. 

" I'm Lieutenant Pirn of the Resolute, now at Dealy 
Island," was the answer, "and I've come to relieve 
Captain M'Clure and the Investigators" 

At first the men could not believe the evidence of 
their senses, but all doubts were set at rest when Pirn's 
sledge, with the two men who had accompanied him, 
and a supply of provisions put in an appearance. It 
seemed that M'Clure's record at Winter Harbour had 
been found, and that Kellett, fearing that the Investi- 
gator might be still detained in the ice, had sent off 
Pirn as soon as the conditions permitted, to bring its 
crew relief if they needed it. The journey had lasted 
a full month, and he only arrived just in time, for two 
or three days later the unfortunate sledge parties were 
to have started off on their terribly forlorn hope. 

On April 8, M'Clure, accompanied by an officer and 

K 



1 46 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

six men, set out on the return journey to the Resolute 
leaving orders for the two sledge parties to follow him. 
By some unaccountable oversight, however, he omitted 
to put the men who remained behind on full rations, 
and two more lives were lost in consequence. 

Even now M'Clure's excessive optimism had not 
deserted him, and, on reaching the Resolute, he told 
Kellett that the twenty men still on board the Investi- 
gator were quite well able to bring her home or to 
endure another winter in the ice if necessary. Kellett, 
however, had seen the condition of the men who com- 
posed the sledge-parties, and was altogether disinclined 
to agree with the gallant captain on this point. He 
accordingly arranged that his own surgeon, Dr 
Domville, should proceed to the Investigator, and, after 
joining Dr Armstrong in a medical survey of the crew, 
should make an unbiassed report thereon. There 
could only be one result. The two doctors found that 
none of the men were entirely free from scurvy, while 
many of them were very seriously ill. M'Clure, how- 
ever, was by no means disposed to yield without a 
struggle. Accordingly he called the men on deck, and 
asked if any of them were prepared to volunteer for 
further service. Only four of them stood forward, so 
he had to yield to the inevitable. 

The ship was cleaned and put in thorough order, 
and, after M'Clure had examined her for the last time, 
and had addressed a few words to the men, which 
according to Armstrong, were not particularly com- 
plimentary, the Investigator was abandoned on June 3. 
Lieutenant Cresswell and several members of the 
expedition joined the North Star at Beechey Island, 



COLLINSON AND M'CLURE 147 

and were finally conveyed to England by H.M.S. 
Phoenix during the summer of 1853. Those who re- 
mained on board the Resolute and Intrepid were 
destined to spend yet another winter in the ice, but 
they eventually reached home in safety during the 
autumn of 1854. The ships themselves, however, had 
to be abandoned, the crews being taken on board the 
North Star, which was still in the neighbourhood. 

It is worthy of mention that in May, 1854, a party 
was sent from the Resolute to report on the condition of 
the Investigator in Mercy Bay. It appeared, from the 
condition of the ice, that she had not been released 
during the summer, and that M'Clure and his men 
would have perished had they remained on board. 

The expedition, though it resulted in the discovery 
of the North- West Passage, cannot be regarded as an 
entire success. It must be remembered that it was 
sent out to take part in the Franklin Search and not to 
add to the world's store of geographical knowledge. 
The coast of Bank's Land was examined, it is true, 
Vut had not M'Clure been so possessed of a desire to 
complete the passage himself, he would probably have 
accomplished a great deal more. 

Collinson's voyage in the Enterprise, if less sensa- 
tional than M'Clure's, was re~Iiy far more remarkable, 
not only for the brilliant manner in which he conducted 
it, but also for the fact that, though he did not know it, 
he was the first of the search parties to approach the 
spot where the Erebus and Terror had been lost. 

Passing Cape Lisburne a fortnight later than M'Clure, 
and not knowing whither the Investigator had gone, he 
examined the pack for a short distance and then sailed 



148 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

south to Hong-Kong, where he spent the winter. As 
soon as the conditions permitted he returned to the 
scene of his labours and rounded Point Barrow on the 
last day of July. Entering Prince of Wales' Strait, he 
succeeded in following it almost to its mouth, but, as 
he had already learnt from a record left by M'Clure 
that his junior officer had discovered the North- West 
Passage, and that there was, in consequence, no 
object in his proceeding further in that direction, he 
turned south again and found winter quarters in 
Walker Bay. 

Sledging expeditions were sent out during the 
autumn and spring to look for the Investigators and 
to try to discover traces of Franklin, but in neither 
object did they meet with any success. The Enterprise 
was released in August, 1852, and, having explored 
Prince Albert Sound, Collinson set his course eastward 
along the coast of America, and eventually reached 
the east end of Dease Strait, where he spent the next 
winter. 

It was during a sledging expedition in the following 
spring that he came nearest to the discovery of the 
remains of the Franklin expedition, for on May 10 he 
stood on Gateshead Island and looked across the strait 
to King William Land, where lay the skeletons of the 
lost sailors. Had M'Clure only seen fit to remain with 
his leader more might have been accomplished, for it 
would have been possible to send out stronger sledging 
parties and to examine that part of the coast more 
thoroughly. Moreover, on board the Investigator was 
the only interpreter which the party possessed, and 
Collinson was, in consequence, unable te learn the 



COLLINSON AND M'CLURE 149 

origin of an engine rod which he obtained from the 
natives. It is practically certain, of course, that this 
was a relic of one of the ill-fated ships, as also was a 
hatch-way which was found on Finlayson Island. 

On being released from his winter quarters, Collin- 
son turned westward again and spent his last winter in 
the Arctic regions off Flaxman's Island, whence he 
returned to England in the following year. 

His voyage was unquestionably one of the most 
remarkable in the whole history of Arctic exploration. 
In a sailing ship of none too good a quality he suc- 
ceeded in covering a distance within the Arctic circle 
which has only once been excelled, and that by a 
steamer, the Vega. He came within fifty-seven miles 
of completing the North-West Passage, the nearest 
approach on record ; and of all the Government 
expeditions sent out he came nearest to bringing 
the Franklin search to a successful conclusion. His 
name ought to rank high in the annals of Arctic 
travel, and it is to be feared that he has never really 
received his just due. 



CHAPTER XVI 

BELCHER AND THE FRANKLIN SEARCH 

WE now come to one of the strangest chapters in 
the whole history of the Franklin search. That 
Sir Edward Belcher's expedition, the last, and in every 
way the most complete equipped by the Government, 
was a fiasco it is quite impossible to deny. At the 
time public feeling ran very high about it, and Belcher 
became the object of much opprobrium, more, probably, 
than he actually deserved. The fact, however, that 
five valuable ships had been abandoned, apparently 
unnecessarily, that not a single trace of Franklin had 
been found, and that the search was given up, although 
its field had been so narrowed down that the direction 
which the missing expedition had taken was practically 
a matter of certainty, naturally rankled in the breasts 
of the British taxpayers. Belcher himself, too, added 
fuel to the fire by writing a singularly fatuous account 
of his travels which is largely composed of stories 
illustrative of his own preternatural sagacity. 

We do not propose to dwell at very great length 
upon Belcher's monumental work, much of which, 
indeed, is absolutely unintelligible to the average 
mind ; but it contains one or two gems which ought 

to be preserved. 
150 



BELCHER'S EXPEDITION 151 

He imagined himself to be the happy possessor, 
among other things, of a marvellous gift of prophecy, 
very nearly, as he naively remarks, approaching to 
sorcery. In support of this claim he mentions the 
following incident in his diary. 

" To-day I felt so perfectly satisfied that a sledge 
was due from Kellett (if he existed), that I fully in- 
tended when the master reported noon, to desire him 
to send a person to look out on the hill. It escaped 
me, being then engaged on other matters ; but my 
clerk coming in, reporting, ' A dog sledge nearly along- 
side, sir ! ' my reply, instigated by what was then 
passing in my mind, was very short, and without 
emotion, ' I know it,' which somewhat astonished him." 
Parenthetically, we may remark that this is a very fair 
example of the author's style as well as of his gift of 
prophecy. 

Here, too, is a delicious passage which contains 
several bulls of the finest dimensions. " I ascended 
the hill, where I had ordered a cairn to be built ; 
possibly it was deemed too steep for younger blood ; 
we built three, one was a house, the two others were 
constructed by myself — the last being on the inaccessible 
summit of True Star Bluff — and unattended. I must 
say that I would not have ordered it to be done by any 
but a volunteer? The italics are our own ; the English, 
however, is entirely Sir Edward Belcher's. 

But we must return to the expedition itself, resisting 
the temptation to quote further examples of its leader's 
unconscious humour. The Government was evidently 
disposed to leave no stone unturned to make it as 
complete as possible. The active work of the search 



152 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

was to be pushed on from four ships, the Assistance, 
Commander G. H. Richards ; the Resolute, Captain 
Henry Kellett ; the Pioneer, Lieutenant Sherard 
Osborn; and the Intrepid, Commander F. L. M'Clintock. 
In addition to these, the expedition was provided 
with a depot ship, the North Star, commanded by 
Lieutenant Pullen. The plan of campaign was to be 
as follows : On reaching the western end of Lancaster 
Sound the squadron was to divide into two parts. 
The Assistance and its tender, the Pioneer, were to 
devote their attention to Wellington Channel, while 
the Resolute with its tender, the Intrepid, was to visit 
Melville Island and explore the Parry Islands. For 
some reason known only to themselves, the Arctic 
committee had decided that it would be useless to 
pursue the search south of these regions. 

The rendezvous at Beechey Island was reached with- 
out misadventure, and the two divisions immediately 
set off in their several directions, leaving the North 
Star behind. Kellett, with the Resolute and Intrepid, 
sailed direct for Winter Harbour, which he had in- 
tended to make his headquarters. He was disappointed, 
however, to find it entirely blocked with ice, and he 
was compelled, in consequence, to moor his ships in a 
bay between Dealy Island and the mainland, which 
was found to answer his purpose admirably. No 
sooner were the preparations for the winter completed 
than the work of sending out sledge parties began. 
He was fortunate in having several excellent officers 
under his command, among them being Lieutenants 
Mecham, Bedford Pirn, and Hamilton, the mate, Mr 
Nares, who commanded the great Polar expedition of 



BELCHERS EXPEDITION 153 

1875, and De Bray, a French volunteer. The brief 
autumn days were spent not in the serious work of the 
search, but in forming depots of provisions at points 
where it was thought that they would be most useful 
on the long spring journeys, and it was during one of 
these that Mecham visited Winter Harbour and found 
the paper that M'Clure had left there during the spring 
of the same year, recording the detention of the 
Investigator in Mercy Bay and the discovery of the 
North-West Passage. 

The winter passed uneventfully enough, but as soon 
as the first signs of the advent of spring appeared, the 
ship was alive with preparations for the sledge journeys. 
One of the first to be sent out was that which Lieutenant 
Bedford Pirn conducted in search of the Investigator, 
but as we have already dealt with that, it is unnecessary 
to dwell upon it again here. Nor is there very much 
to be said concerning the parties led by M'Clintock 
of the Intrepid, and Mecham and Hamilton of the 
Resolute. By exploring the Parry Islands thoroughly 
they added greatly to the world's store of knowledge 
concerning those regions, but one sledge journey in the 
Arctic regions bears a very strong family likeness to 
another, and these differed from their predecessors 
in no important essentials. Some idea of the vigour 
with which the work was pushed forward, however, 
may be gathered from the following figures. During 
the autumn and spring M'Clintock, the greatest of 
all Arctic sledgemen, covered 1661 miles in 145 days, 
Mecham, 1375 miles in 117 days, Roche, 1039 miles in 
79 days, Nares, 980 miles in 94 days, Domville, 739 
miles in yy days, and De Bray, 642 miles in 62 days. 



154 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Altogether, the various parties covered about 8558 
miles, most of which had never been traversed by a 
white man before. 

Early in August, 1853, the ice began to loosen, and 
Kellett, realising that nothing further could be done in 
these regions so far as the Franklin search was con- 
cerned, decided to sail for Beechey Island. He was 
not destined, however, to get very far, for on September 
9th the ships were caught in the pack, and were soon 
so firmly embedded in it that there was no prospect 
whatever of escape during that season at any rate. 
The outlook, however, was not unpromising, for the 
ice, after drifting eastward for a while, soon became 
stationary, and Kellett found himself in a position 
which pointed to an early escape during the following 
summer. It was disappointing, of course, especially 
for those members of the Investigators crew who were 
on board, but, as they had been so fortunate as to 
obtain an ample supply of game, there was no prospect 
of starvation. 

Early in the spring of 1854 Kellett decided to send 
out three sledge parties, one under Krabbe, to report 
on the condition of the Investigator, another under 
Hamilton to open up communications with Sir Edward 
Belcher, and the third under Mecham to explore 
Princess Royal Islands, in Prince of Wales' Strait. 
Of these three the last was by far the most remarkable. 
In the face of immense difficulties, Mecham and his men 
made their way to Princess Royal Islands, and there 
they found records left by Captain Collinson of the 
Enterprise, which, it will be remembered started out 
with, but was soon separated from the Investigator. 




<J en 



BELCHER'S EXPEDITION 155 

From these records they learnt that Collinson had 
passed up the strait as far as Point Peel, had turned 
back and had passed the winter of 1851-52 in lat. 
71° 36' N., long. 11 7° 41' W. The records went on to 
say that the north and south shores of Prince Albert 
Land had been thoroughly explored, that several 
parties had visited Point Hearne, on Melville Island, 
and that the ship had left with a view to exploring a 
passage which, it was supposed, separated Prince 
Albert Land from Wollaston Land. Having obtained 
this intelligence, Mecham resolved to return at once 
to the Resolute. On reaching Dealy Island, however, 
he found orders to make for Beechey Island, which 
he accordingly proceeded to do, arriving there on 
June 12, after an extraordinary journey of 70 days 
during which he and his men had covered 1336 
miles. 

It is now time to return to the fortunes of Sir Edward 
Belcher and the Assistance. It will be remembered 
that when Kellett sailed away westward, Belcher and 
his two ships turned northwards with the intention of 
exploring Wellington Channel. Fortune favoured them 
and they passed without difficulty first up Wellington 
and then through Queen's Channel to Northumberland 
Sound, on the west side of Grinnell Peninsula. Belcher 
soon found himself at the entrance to the Polar Sea, 
and his voyage resulted in the discovery of Belcher 
Channel, which links up Queen's Channel with Jones' 
Sound. He did not push his explorations very far, 
however, for, having received dispatches telling him of 
the rescue of the Investigators, he suddenly turned back 
presumably with the intention of intercepting Kellett 



156 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

at Beechey Island. He did not succeed in reaching his 
proposed destination, for, when about fifty miles from 
the mouth of Wellington Channel the Assistance was 
caught in the ice. 

Early in September Sherard Osborn set out with 
dispatches for Beechey Island. On his return he 
brought news of the arrival of H.M.S. Phoenix, com- 
manded by Captain Inglefield, and of the sad death of 
Lieutenant Bellot who had volunteered for service on 
the Phoenix, which was sent out with supplementary 
stores for the North Star. Bellot, it appeared, had 
started off for the Assistance with a number of official 
letters for Sir Edward Belcher. On the way, while 
travelling over the ice, he had suddenly and completely 
disappeared, and it was supposed that he had met his 
death by slipping down into a crevice between two 
hummocks. 

During the winter Belcher indulged in another fit of 
prophecy, in the course of which he foresaw that he 
would shortly receive orders from England to abandon 
his ships and make the best of his way home. He 
accordingly decided to anticipate these commands, and 
immediately set about making preparations for quitting 
the vessels in the spring. His orders came upon his 
officers like a bolt from the blue. Having no idea that 
he contemplated any such step, they had carefully 
husbanded their provisions, and, as their men were, on the 
whole, in excellent health, they could see no reason why 
an attempt to extricate the ships should not be made 
during the summer. Belcher, however, secure in his faith 
in his prophetic instinct, was as adamant, and nothing 
that they could say could move him from his purpose. 



BELCHERS EXPEDITION 157 

Accordingly, early in May the four ships were put in 
order and the crews, regretting bitterly the step which 
they were compelled to take, bade them a last farewell. 
In accordance with Belcher's orders, they met on the 
North Star at Beechey Island, and there they were 
eventually found by the two transport ships, the Phcenix 
and the Talbot. 

The abandonment of these five vessels created much 
unpleasant feeling in the country. Not only did it 
entail a serious financial loss, apparently unnecessarily, 
but it also discouraged the Government from taking 
any further steps towards the discovery of the fate of 
Franklin and his expedition. In the middle of October, 
a court martial was held with a view to sifting the 
matter thoroughly. M'Clure and Kellett were first 
tried on the charge of abandoning the Investigator and 
the Resolute, but they were naturally enough acquitted, 
as they were able to show that they were acting under 
the orders of their superior officer. Their swords were 
returned to them with sundry graceful compliments 
by Admiral Gordon, the president of the court. Sir 
Edward Belcher was also acquitted, but with an im- 
plied rebuke, a rebuke which was pointed by the return 
of his sword in dead silence. 

Most of the ships were never seen again. The 
Resolute, however, drifted 1000 miles through Barrow 
Strait, Lancaster Sound and Baffin Bay, and was 
eventually found off Cape Dyer by Captain J. M. 
Buddington, an American whaler. Buddington brought 
the ship safely to the United States' port of New Lon- 
don, where she was promptly purchased by the Ameri- 
can Government for $40,000. She was then refitted, 



158 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the ship's stores, flags, officer's libraries and her other 
appointments were restored to their original positions 
and she was presented to the Queen and the people of 
Great Britain as a token of goodwill on the part of the 
American nation. 



CHAPTER XVII 

RAE'S JOURNEYS OF 1 85 1 -5 3 

RAE had displayed such ability when acting in 
conjunction with Sir John Richardson that the 
Government felt that they could not do better than 
entrust the conduct of the next expedition to him, so 
they asked Sir George Simpson for the loan of his 
services and commissioned him to continue the Franklin 
search in 1851 in whatever manner he thought best, 
only stipulating that the voyage should be made by 
boat. 

With considerable difficulty he succeeded in getting 
two small boats built at the Great Bear Lake, and, 
after a preliminary sledge-expedition to Wollaston 
Land, in which he covered no less than 1100 miles in 
thirty-one days, on June 15, 185 1, he started off on 
the serious work of the year from Provision Station, 
Kendall River, whither the boats had been brought to 
meet him. Passing through Dease Strait he soon made 
Cape Colburn, and instantly set to work to examine 
the east coast of Victoria Land, much of which had 
never been visited by a civilised man before. His 
boats, however, had to be abandoned after a while, for 
a stiff northerly gale and packed ice made it impossible 
for him to use them, and he felt that he would do better 

if he pursued his journey on foot. The rugged lime- 

159 



i6o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

stone debris with which the shore was covered, how- 
ever, made this mode of travelling exceedingly irksome, 
and, meeting with no better success inland, he was 
obliged to turn back after attaining lat. yo° 03' long. 10 1* 
25' thus, though he did not know it, reaching a higher 
latitude than that in which the Erebus and Terror were 
abandoned. 

On his way home he found a boat's stanchion and 
the butt-end of a small flagstaff, with a piece of rope 
attached to it in the form of a loop, which he rightly 
supposed to be relics of the Franklin expedition. 

He returned to Fort Confidence, at the eastern 
extremity of the Great Bear Lake, without misad- 
venture, after a brilliant journey, in the course of 
which he had explored 725 miles of unknown coast- 
line in Wollaston and Victoria Lands. For this 
service the Royal Geographical Society awarded him 
the founder's gold medal. 

His next journey was undertaken not as an agent of 
the Government, but as a servant of the Hudson's Bay 
Company, and his mission was to explore the west 
coast of Boothia, of which very little was known at that 
time. 

His first objective was his old headquarters at 
Repulse Bay, and thither he sailed in August. The 
outlook was calculated to fill with misgivings the heart 
of a less intrepid explorer than Rae. The weather, in 
the first place, was unfavourable for fishing and hunting. 
In the second place, not a trace of an Eskimo was to 
be found, from which fact he gathered that game was 
not so plentiful now as was the case when he had paid 
his last visit to Repulse Bay. Consequently he began 






RAE'S JOURNEYS OF 1851-53 161 

to feel serious doubts as to the possibility of spending 
the winter there, for, being of the opinion that the 
country ought always to be made to support the ex- 
plorer, he had only brought sufficient provisions for 
three months, and had depended on his guns and his 
nets to make up the deficiency. Consequently, he did 
not feel justified in asking his men to share the dangers 
of an Arctic winter with him against their will, so he 
called them together, told them exactly how matters 
stood, and asked them whether they would stay there 
or return. Such was their confidence in their leader 
that they one and all volunteered to remain where 
they were. Luckily for them the weather improved a 
little, and before the end of September they had laid 
in a sufficient supply of provisions and fuel to last 
them up to the period of the spring migrations of the 
deer. 

It was on the last day of March that Rae and four 
men started out on the great spring journey which 
would, as they hoped, lead them across Boothia 
Peninsula from Pelly Bay to the Castor and Pollux 
River, and thence northward along the western coast 
of Boothia as far as Bellot Strait, thus connecting 
Simpson's discoveries with those of Kennedy. They 
had been travelling for about three weeks when they 
happened to fall in with an Eskimo, from whom they 
obtained the first news of Franklin's fate. The story is, 
perhaps, best given in Rae's own words : — 

" The man was very communicative, and, on putting 
to him the usual questions as to his having seen white 
men before, or any ships or boats, he replied in the 
negative ; but said that a party of ' Kabloonans ' 

L 



1 62 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

(whites) had died of starvation a long distance to the 
west of where we then were, and beyond a large river. 
He stated that he did not know the exact place, that 
he had never been there, and that he could not 
accompany us so far." 

The substance of the information then and subse- 
quently obtained was to the following effect : — 

" In the spring four winters past (1850), whilst some 
Eskimo families were killing seals near the north shore 
of a large island, named in Arrowsmith's charts King 
William Land, forty white men were seen travelling in 
company southward over the ice, and dragging a boat 
and sledges with them. They were passing along the 
shore of the above named island. None of the party 
could speak the Eskimo language so well as to be 
understood ; but by signs the natives were led to 
believe the ship or ships had been crushed by ice, and 
that they were then going to where they expected to 
find deer to shoot. From the appearance of the men 
(all of whom, with the exception of one officer, were 
hauling on the drag ropes of the sledges, and were 
looking thin,) they were then supposed to be getting 
short of provisions, and they purchased a small seal, or 
piece of seal, from the native. The officer was described 
as being a tall, stout, middle-aged man. When their 
day's journey terminated they pitched tents to rest in. 
" At a later day the same season, but previous to 
the disruption of the ice, the corpses of some thirty 
persons and some graves were discovered on the con- 
tinent, and five dead bodies on an island near it, about 
a long day's journey to the north-west of the mouth of 
a large stream, which can be no other than Back's Great 



RAE'S JOURNEYS OF 1851-53 163 

Fish River, as its description and that of the low shore 
in the neighbourhood of Point Ogle and Montreal Island 
agree exactly with that of Sir George Back. Some of 
the bodies were in a tent or tents, others were under 
the boat, which had been turned over to form a shelter, 
and some lay scattered about in different directions. 
Of those seen on the island, it was supposed that one 
was that of an officer (chief), as he had a telescope 
strapped over his shoulders, and his double-barrelled 
gun lay underneath him. From the mutilated state of 
many of the bodies, and the contents of the kettles, it 
is evident that our wretched countrymen had been 
driven to the last dread alternative — cannibalism — as a 
means of sustaining life. A few of the unfortunate 
men must have survived until the arrival of the wild 
fowl (say until the end of May), as shots were heard, 
and fresh bones and feathers of geese were noticed 
near the scene of the sad event. 

" There appears to have been an abundant store of 
ammunition, as the gunpowder was emptied by the 
natives in a heap on the ground, and a quantity of 
shot and ball was found below high-water mark, having 
probably been left on the ice close to the beach before 
the spring thaw commenced. There must have been 
a number of telescopes, guns (some of them double- 
barrelled), watches, compasses, etc., all of which seem 
to have been broken up, as I saw pieces of these 
different articles with the natives, and I purchased as 
many as possible, together with some silver spoons and 
forks, an order of merit in the form of a star, and a 
small plate engraved ' Sir John Franklin, K.C.B.' " 

These spoons and forks, it may be mentioned, bore 



1 64 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the crests and initials of some fifteen members of the 
expedition. 

So far as Rae could discover, the natives had seen 
no traces whatever of the ships, and whenever they 
were questioned about them, they always reverted to 
the Victory, which was abandoned by Ross in the Gulf 
of Boothia in 1832. " My chief reason," he writes, " for 
believing that none of the ships had been found was 
the fact that, in 1854, the Eskimos were so destitute of 
wood, that, although they had plenty of sealskins to 
make their small hunting canoes, they had no wood for 
the frames. Now, as 1846 was fourteen years after 
Ross's vessel was abandoned, and as 1854 was only four 
years by Eskimo account — actually six years — after 
the Franklin ships were abandoned, the probability is 
that had these ships, or even one of them, been found, 
the natives would have had at least as much wood in 
1854 as they had in 1847. The testimony of the Fox 
expedition of 1854 tends to support this idea, as no 
large wooden sledges were found, and no wood of a 
size larger than might have been got from the keel of 
a boat was seen. ... I questioned the Repulse Bay 
Eskimos over and over again about whether any of the 
ships of the starved white men had been found, but 
they could tell me nothing, and always went back to 
the story of the Victory, stating that it was the only 
vessel from which wood had been obtained. I still 
believe that this was the ship to which the Eskimos 
referred when speaking to M'Clintock in 1859, and 
that they concealed the locality of the wreck lest he 
should wish to go there. ... I may add that the white 
men when seen alive by the Eskimos made the latter 



RAE'S JOURNEYS OF 1851-53 165 

understand by signs and a word or two of Eskimo, that 

they were going to the mainland (noo-nah) to shoot 

deer (took-took). . . . The Eskimos also remarked that 

it was curious that the sledges were seen with the party 

when travelling, but none were seen where the dead 

were, although the boat or boats remained. I pointed 

out to them that the white men having got close to the 

mouth of the Great Fish River, would require their 

boat to go up it, but as they did not require the sledges 

any more, they might have burned them for fuel. A 

look of intelligence immediately lit up their faces, and 

they said that they might have done so, for there had 

been fires. . . . They said also that feathers of geese 

had been seen, so they had probably shot some of these 

birds — an evidence that some of the party must have 

lived until the beginning of June, the date at which the 

geese arrive so far north. . . . What struck me at the 

time, as it does still, was the great mistake made by 

Franklin's party in attempting to save themselves by 

retreating to the Hudson's Bay territories. We should 

have thought that the fearful sufferings undergone by 

Franklin and his companions, Richardson and Back, on 

a former short journey through these barren grounds, 

would have deterred inexperienced men from attempting 

1 such a thing, when the well-known route to Fury Beach, 

certainly more accessible than any of the Hudson 

I Bay Company's settlements, and by which the Rosses 

'■ escaped in 1832-33, was open to them. The distance 

1 from their ships to Fury Beach was very little greater 

; than that from where Ross's vessel was abandoned to 

• the same place, and Franklin and his officers must have 

1 known that an immense stock of provisions still remained 



1 66 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

at the place where the Fury was wrecked, and where, 
even so late as 1859, an immense stock of preserved 
vegetables, soups, tobacco, sugar, flour, etc., still re- 
mained (a much larger supply than could be found at 
many of the Hudson's Bay trading posts) ; besides, the 
people would have been in the direct road of searching 
parties or whalers. The distance to Fury Beach from 
where the ships were abandoned, roughly measured, is, 
as nearly as possible, the same as that between the 
ships and the true mouth of the Great Fish River, or 
about 210 geographical miles in a straight line. Had 
the retreat upon Fury Beach been resolved upon, the 
necessity for hauling heavy boats would have been 
avoided, for during the previous season (that of 1847) 
a small sledge party might have been despatched 
thither to ascertain whether the provisions and boats 
at the depot were safe and available. The successful 
performance of such a journey should not have been 
difficult for an expedition consisting of 130 men who, 
in the record found in 1859 by M'Clintock, were reported 
all well in the spring of 1847." 

These discoveries of Rae's were, of course, mere side 
issues,, and had no connection with the main object of 
his journey, which was the exploration of the western 
coast of Boothia. He accordingly resisted the strong 
temptation to inquire more closely into Franklin's fate, 
and went on with the work which he had in hand. 
Unfortunately for him he had no sledges with him and 
no Eskimos to give him their assistance, for the natives 
who brought him the news already detailed soon 
left him ; he was, in consequence, severely handi- 
capped, and a naturally difficult journey was made 



RAE'S JOURNEYS OF 1851-53 167 

all the more arduous. By dint of great exertions, 
however, he succeeded in reaching Simpson's farthest 
on the Castor and Pollux River. Thence, in accordance 
with his instructions, he turned north, with the object 
of making his way to Bellot Strait, thus linking together 
the discoveries of Simpson and Kennedy. At Point 
de la Guiche, however, he was brought to a stop by fog 
and snow, and it soon became apparent that he could 
not attempt to reach the Strait without endangering 
the lives of his party. Accordingly, on May 7 he 
turned back, and finally reached Repulse Bay on May 
26, after a brilliantly successful journey, during the 
course of which he had not merely added many miles 
of coastline to the chart, but had also gained the first 
authoritative news of the fate of Franklin, for which he 
was awarded the £ 10,000 offered by the Government. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

M'CLINTOCK AND THE " FOX " 

THE news that Rae brought home naturally 
created the greatest stir in England, and it 
was felt that steps ought to be taken at once to dis- 
cover whether any of the luckless explorers had 
succeeded in making their way to the territories 
of the Hudson's Bay Company. Unfortunately the 
Crimean War was at that time occupying the full re- 
sources of the nation, and the Government accordingly 
appealed to the Hudson's Bay Company to send out 
yet another expedition to search the neighbourhood of 
the Great Fish River. In response to this appeal, Mr 
James Anderson, chief factor of the Company, was 
detailed for the service, but, as he did not succeed in 
discovering any valuable clues, his journey need not 
detain us here. 

After this failure the Government was indisposed to 
take any further steps in the matter, arguing — and it 
is not to be denied that they had a certain amount of 
reason on their side — that it was practically impossible 
that any member of the expedition should be still alive, 
seeing that eleven years had elapsed since they left 
England. Lady Franklin, however, was by no means 
disposed to let matters rest here, so, with the help of 
a number of friends, she fitted out the Fox, a steam 

16S 



M'CLINTOCK AND THE "FOX'' 169 

yacht of 157 tons, and placed it under Commander 
M'Clintock, whose brilliant work in the Arctic Seas 
made him peculiarly fitted for such a mission. 
Lieutenant W. R. Hobson joined as second in com- 
mand, Captain Allen Young consented to act as 
sailing-master, while many other members of the 
company had already seen Arctic service, among 
them being Dr Walker and Carl Petersen, the 
interpreter. 

Fully provisioned for twenty-eight months, the Fox 
set sail from Aberdeen on July 1, 1857. M'Clintock 
found the ice in Melville Bay in a far from satisfactory 
condition, but, being determined to run any risks rather 
than linger on the journey, he entered the pack and 
attempted to make Lancaster Sound. For three weeks 
or so he pushed on in the face of great difficulties, but 
it soon became evident that he was not destined to 
cross the bay that year, and before the middle of 
September the Fox was firmly frozen into the pack 
with no prospect of release until the following spring. 

After a somewhat exciting winter, during the course 
of which the voyage of the yacht was, on more than 
one occasion, nearly brought to an untimely end, she 
was at last released, and, after putting into Holstein- 
berg Bay for repairs, she made her second attempt 
to cross Melville Bay. On this occasion fate was 
kinder to her, and, on August 6, she steamed up 
Lancaster Sound, anchoring off Beechey Island on the 
nth. Here M'Clintock landed a handsome tomb- 
stone sent out by Lady Franklin in memory of her 
husband and his companions, which was placed close 
to the monument erected to the memory of Bellot 



i7o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

and those who had died on the previous search 
expeditions. 

Peel Sound proved impracticable, so M'Clintock 
determined to make for Bellot Strait, through which 
no ship had yet sailed, and the very existence of which 
was disputed by many. All doubts upon the latter 
point were soon set at rest, but the violent currents 
which raced through the strait, bearing with them vast 
masses of ice that threatened the ship with instant 
destruction whenever she attempted to force a passage 
through, made it impossible for M'Clintock to reach 
the western ocean, and, after several gallant attempts, 
he was obliged to resign himself to the inevitable, and 
to make preparations for spending the winter in an 
indentation on the north side of the strait, which he 
named Port Kennedy. 

The winter passed without misadventure, and on 
February 17 M'Clintock set out on a preliminary 
expedition, with a view to gleaning such information 
as he could from the Boothian natives. To his dis- 
appointment the coast seemed completely deserted, 
and he was thinking of turning back when he came 
upon four Eskimos, members of a tribe which was 
established in a snow village not far off. From these 
men he obtained some tidings of the fate of the missing 
explorers, though they could not add very much to 
what he already knew. A number of white men, they 
said, had been starved to death on an island near a 
river. None of them had seen the men, but both they 
and their friends had articles in their possession which 
had once belonged to the whites. Having engaged 
these natives to build him a snow-hut for the muni- 






M'CLINTOCK AND THE "FOX" 171 

ficent remuneration of a needle apiece, he sent them 
back to tell their friends that he was willing to purchase 
any relics that they possessed at a good price. On the 
following day the whole community, from the oldest 
man to the youngest baby, put in an appearance, bring- 
ing with them numbers of spoons, forks, buttons, and 
knives, which M'Clintock immediately acquired. He 
then set out on the return journey to the ship, reaching 
Port Kennedy on March 14. During his absence of 
twenty-five days he had covered about four hundred 
and twenty miles, and had completed the discovery of 
the coast-line of continental America. 

Immediately after his return he despatched Young, 
who had been depositing a store of provisions on 
Prince of Wales' Land, on a trip to Fury Beach, with 
instructions to bring back a supply of sugar from the 
stores left there by Parry. He found an immense stock 
of provisions of all kinds, most of them in a marvellous 
state of preservation. In addition to 1200 lbs. of 
sugar, he brought back a couple of tins of "carrots 
plain " and " carrots with gravy," which had lain on the 
shore for thirty-four years and were still in excellent 
condition. 

By the beginning of April everything was in readi- 
ness for the extended sledge journeys. M'Clintock 
arranged that the operations should be conducted 
by three different parties, led by himself, Hobson, and 
Young. Each party was to consist of four men draw- 
ing one sledge and six dogs drawing the second sledge, 
besides the officer in charge and the dog-driver. He 
was, of course, a past master of the art of arranging 
sledging expeditions, and so carefully had he disposed 



172 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

his depots of provisions, and so skilfully had he 
adjusted the travelling equipment of the parties, that 
he expected that each of them would be able to absent 
itself from the ship for seventy or eighty days without 
any difficulty whatever. 

M'Clintock and Hobson started off on their journeys 
on April 2. For a while their routes coincided, and, by 
hoisting their tents as sails, and so taking advantage 
of a favourable breeze, they made excellent progress. 
It was not until they were well on their way down the 
coast of Boothia that they fell in with natives, and from 
these they learnt that two ships had been seen some 
years before off King William Land. One of them 
had sunk in deep water, but the other had been forced 
ashore by the ice, where she was still supposed to 
remain, though much broken. It was from the latter 
ship, according to their story, that they had obtained 
most of their wood. 

On April 28 they reached Cape Victoria, on the 
south-west Coast of Boothia Felix. Here they were 
to separate, and all credit must be given to M'Clintock 
for his generosity to his junior officer. Though he 
knew that, if relics were to be found at all, it would be 
on the west coast of King William Land, he sent off 
Hobson to explore that district, reserving the far less 
promising east coast for himself. Hobson's instruc- 
tions were to cross to Cape Felix, the most northern 
point of King William Land, and then to search the 
whole of the west coast for the missing ship or any 
relics or records that might be deposited there. Should 
his search prove unsuccessful, he was to cross to Victoria 
Land, and to complete the exploration of that coast 



M'CLINTOCK AND THE "FOX" 173 

from Collinson's farthest point. In the meanwhile, 
M'Clintock himself meant to push southward down the 
east coast of King William's Land in the direction of 
the Great Fish River. 

The results were exactly as we have indicated. 
M'Clintock examined the whole of the east coast and 
the estuary of the Great Fish River with the utmost 
care, but, with the exception of an occasional relic 
obtained from the natives, his search was fruitless. 
He accordingly crossed the strait on May 24, and pro- 
ceeded to link up his own explorations with those of 
Hobson. On the following day his patience was at 
last rewarded, for, while slowly walking along a gravel 
ridge near the beach, which the winds kept unusually 
bare of snow, he came upon a skeleton partly exposed. 
From the clothing that lay near by he gathered that 
the victim must have been a steward or officer's ser- 
vant, who, selecting the bare ridge-top as affording less 
tiresome walking, had fallen on his face in the position 
in which his skeleton was found. It may here be said 
that an old woman with whom M'Clintock communi- 
cated on his outward journey had told him that the 
unfortunate explorers had " fallen down and died as 
they walked along." Of the melancholy truth of her 
words this discovery afforded a terrible confirmation. 

At Cape Herschel M'Clintock found the cairn 
erected by Simpson, and this he demolished in the hope 
that the missing explorers might have left some record 
there, but he found nothing. Twelve miles further on 
he learnt that that for which Tie had been searching so 
diligently had been discovered, for he came upon a 
second cairn of more recent construction — the cairn 



174 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

which marked the end of Hobson's brilliantly successful 
journey. In penetrating thus far Hobson had passed 
the point at which the Erebus and Terror had been 
abandoned, and had found the first, and, indeed, the 
only important record of the journey which it fell to 
the lot of a white man to discover. 

The record, which was enclosed in a tin box and 
found beside a tumbled cairn, was brief enough, but it 
contained the whole history of the ill-fated expedition. 
It consisted merely of one of those printed Government 
forms which were supplied to all discovery ships. 
These forms were intended to be filled up with intima- 
tions of discoveries, accident or distress, and then to be 
enclosed in a bottle and thrown into the sea or else 
buried under a cairn. A note at the head, written in 
several different languages, requested the finder to 
forward the paper to the Secretary of the Admiralty, 
or, if more convenient, to hand it over to the nearest 
British consul, with an intimation concerning the time 
and place at which it had been found. It was on one 
of these that Franklin's officers had made their last 
communication to the world. The contents of the 
document ran as follows : — 

" H.M. ships Erebus and Terror, 

Wintered in the ice in lat. 70° 5' N. , long. 98° 23' W. 

28th of May 1847. 

Having wintered in 1846-7 at Beechey Island in 
lat. 74 43' 28" N., long. 91 39' 5" W., after having 
ascended Wellington Channel to lat. 77°, and returned 
by the west side of Cornwallis Island. 

Sir John Franklin commanding the expedition. 

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THE FRANKLIN RECORD 



M'CLINTOCK AND THE "FOX" 175 

Party, consisting of 2 officers and 6 men, left the 
ships on Monday, 24th May 1847. 

Gm. Gore, Lieut. 

Chas. F. Des Vceux, Mate." 

The following notes were written round the 
margin : — 

"April 25th, 1848. — H.M. ships Erebus and Terror 
were deserted on the 22nd April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of 
this, having been beset since 12th September 1846. 
The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under 
the command of F.R.M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 
69° 37' 42" N., long. 98° 41' W. Sir John Franklin 
died on nth June 1847 ; and the total loss by death 
in the expedition has been, to this date, 9 officers and 
15 men. 

(Signed) (Signed) 

F. R. M. Crozier, James Fitzjames, 

Captain and Senior Officer. Capt. H.M.S. Erebus. 

And start on to-morrow, 26th, 
for Back's Fish River." 

" This paper was found by Lieutenant Irving under 
the cairn supposed to have been built by Sir James 
Ross in 183 1, four miles to the northward, where it had 
been deposited by the late Commander Gore in June 
1847. Sir James Ross's pillar has not, however, been 
found ; and the paper has been transferred to this 
position, which is that in which Sir James Ross's pillar 
was erected." 

From this paper it will be seen that Franklin had 
made the most remarkable voyage ever recorded in the 
annals of Arctic exploration. After being sighted in 
Baffin's Bay on July 26, 1845, ne had sailed through 



176 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Lancaster Sound and Barrow Strait, and up Wellington 
Channel as far as yy° N. He had then returned to the 
mouth of the channel via the west coast of Cornwallis 
Island, and had wintered off Beechey Island in 1845-46 
(the date given in the paper is obviously wrong). As 
soon as he was released he had attempted to make his 
way south to the American coast, but had been caught 
in the pack, never again to be released. The winter of 
1846-47 was passed at a point about fifteen miles 
north-west of Cape Felix, the most northerly point of 
King William Island ; and in the spring, when all on 
board were reported to be well, two officers and six 
men started off on an expedition, the direction and 
purpose of which are not stated. A fortnight later 
death spared Franklin the pain of knowing that his 
party could never again reach home, and of seeing 
his men dying of cold and starvation, one by one, 
before his eyes. The summer brought no prospects of 
escape, and during the following winter the two ships 
drifted southward with the ice for a distance of about 
thirty miles. As early in the spring as the conditions 
permitted, all the survivors left the ship in an effort to 
win their way back to civilisation, but not a single one 
of them succeeded in accomplishing his task. " So sad 
a tale," says M'Clintock, " was never told in fewer 
words. There is something deeply touching in their 
extreme simplicity, and they show in the strongest 
manner that both the leaders of this retreating party 
were actuated by the loftiest sense of duty, and met 
with calmness and decision the fearful alternative of a 
last bold struggle for life, rather than perish without 
effort on board their ships." 



M'CLINTOCK AND THE "FOX'' 177 

Before reaching the Fox M'Clintock was destined to 
find yet more grim evidence to the fate of the unfor- 
tunate explorers. After rounding Cape Crozier, the 
westernmost point of King William Island, the desola- 
tion of which was absolutely beyond description, he 
came upon a boat which had formed part of the 
Franklin expedition, and in which lay two skeletons. 
Hobson had previously discovered the boat, and had 
left in it a note for his commander to the effect that the 
most careful search had failed to reveal any journal or 
other memoranda such as might fill in the details of 
the story of which they already knew the terrible out- 
line. M'Clintock instantly set about another examina- 
tion of the boat and its surroundings, in the hope that 
he might come upon something that had escaped the 
eyes of his junior officer, but he was unrewarded. The 
boat itself he found to be of a light build such as would 
be suitable for the ascent of the Great Fish River, and 
fitted with sails, a sloping canvas roof, an ice-grapnell 
and a deep-sea sounding-line, which was probably 
intended for river work as a track-line. She was, how- 
ever, mounted on so heavy a sledge that seven men in 
the best of health would have found dragging her over 
the ice no easy task. 

In this boat lay two skeletons, one of them huddled 
up in the bows, and the other across the afterthwart. 
Beside them were five watches, two guns, and a 
number of books, for the most part devotional, but, 
search as they would, M'Clintock and his men could 
find no trace of a pocket-book or journal, nor even a 
scrap of clothing marked with a name which might 
reveal the identity of the two victims. Pieces of plate 

M 



178 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

and an extraordinary variety of miscellaneous articles, 
ranging from two rolls of sheet-lead to tacks, were 
scattered about in the boat, and these M'Clintock de- 
scribes as " a mere accumulation of dead weight, of 
little use, and very likely to break down the strength of 
the sledge-crews. The only provisions we could find," 
he continues, " were tea and chocolate. Of the former, 
very little remained, but there were nearly forty pounds 
of the latter. These articles alone could never support 
life in such a climate, and we found neither biscuit nor 
meat of any kind." 

From the direction in which the boat's head was 
pointing, and from its contents, M'Clintock concluded 
that the party attached to it had started out for the 
Great Fish River, but, finding themselves too utterly 
worn out to proceed far, had turned back intending to 
make their way to the ship. Unable to drag the boat 
any further, they had left it where it was found by the 
explorers, meaning to bring back food to their two 
companions who had been obliged, through weakness, 
to remain behind. The fact that five watches were left 
in the boat points to the conclusion that they had not 
thought of abandoning it finally. Overcome by cold 
and fatigue, however, they must have perished on 
the way. 

After leaving the boat, M'Clintock pushed on his way 
with all possible dispatch, searching for traces of the 
wrecked ship as he went, but without success. He 
reached Point Victory on June 2, and there he found 
a note from Hobson, telling him that he had met 
with no better fortune in the execution of this part of 
his mission, but that he had found a duplicate of the 



M'CLINTOCK AND THE "FOX'' 179 

record which we have already described. M'Clintock 
spent some little time in examining the cairn under 
which the paper had been discovered, and found 
strewn about it a vast variety of such miscellaneous 
articles as cooking-stoves, pickaxes, shovels, four feet 
of a copper lightning conductor, long pieces of brass 
curtain rods, a medicine chest, and some scientific in- 
struments. There was also a pile of clothing four feet 
high, of which every article was searched. The pockets, 
however, were all empty, and not a single piece of the 
clothing was marked with its owner's name. " These 
abandoned superfluities," M'Clintock writes, " afford the 
saddest and most convincing proof that here — on this 
spot — our doomed and scurvy-stricken countrymen 
calmly prepared themselves to struggle manfully for 
life." 

There was now nothing left for M'Clintock but to 
return to the Fox, and this he accordingly did with all 
possible speed, reaching Bellot Strait on June 18. On 
the return journey he learned from a note left at one of 
the depots that Hobson had been taken seriously ill, 
and had grown so feeble that it had been found neces- 
sary to place him on one of the sledges. To his great 
relief he heard, on reaching the ship, that the scurvy 
from which his junior was suffering had already yielded 
to treatment, and that he was on the high road to 
recovery. 

With the principal fruits of Hobson's journey we 
have already dealt, and the rest may be dismissed in a 
few words. After leaving M'Clintock at Cape Victoria, 
he crossed James Ross Strait without any difficulty, 
and immediately turned westward round Cape Felix. 



180 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Here he came upon the first signs of the Franklin 
expedition, in the shape of " a large cairn, close beside 
which were three small tents, with blankets, old clothes, 
and other vestiges of a shooting or magnetic station. 
But," says M'Clintock, " although the cairn was dug 
under and a trench dug all round it to a distance of 

ten feet, no record was discovered Two miles 

farther to the southwest a small cairn was found, but 
neither record nor relics ; and about three miles to the 
north of Point Victory a third cairn was examined, but 
only a broken pickaxe and empty canister found." 
These with, of course, the boat and the famous record, 
completed the list of Hobson's discoveries. 

In the meanwhile Young had been very far from 
idle. It had been his mission to explore Peel, or, as it 
was afterwards called, Franklin Strait and Prince of 
Wales Island, and he had accomplished his task in the 
face of great difficulties. In the first place, gales were 
almost incessant, and it was no easy matter to make 
any headway at all against them ; in the second place, 
he was disgusted to find that a channel existed between 
Prince of Wales Land and Victoria Land, and that his 
field of discovery would, in consequence, be widened, 
and his search lengthened. Accordingly, with a view 
to having as few mouths to feed as possible, he sent back 
most of his men and dogs to the ship, and tramped on 
accompanied only by a young man-of-war's man named 
George Hobday. For forty days they pushed forward 
till Young became so ill through cold and exposure 
that he was obliged to return to Port Kennedy, which 
he reached on June 7. His spirit, however, was quite 
indomitable, and, in spite of the protests of the doctor, 



M'CLINTOCK AND THE "FOX" 181 

he was off again on a fresh journey three days later. 
In all, he was away from the ship for seventy-eight 
days, during the course of which he explored no fewer 
than 380 miles of new coastline. This, with the 420 
miles explored by M'Clintock and Hobson, makes the 
splendid total of 800 miles, a record of which the 
expedition had good reason to be proud. 

M'Clintock now determined to make the best of his 
way home as soon as the thaw should release him. 
Steam was got up on August 6, in order that the oppor- 
tunity might be seized when it arrived, which desirable 
event took place three days later. The death of his 
engineer had left M'Clintock very short handed, and 
he himself stood at the engines for twenty-four con- 
secutive hours. Though held up occasionally by the 
ice, the return journey passed without any misadventure, 
and the Fox reached the English Channel on Sep- 
tember 20. 

It may here be added that in 1875 Captain Young 
attempted to follow the route opened up by Franklin 
and to reach Behring Strait via Peel and Franklin 
Straits ; an impenetrable ice-barrier in Peel Strait, 
however, compelled him to turn back. In 1878-79, 
Lieutenant F. Schwatka, of the United States Army, 
and Mr W. H. Gilder, in the course of a brilliant jour- 
ney, thoroughly explored the route over which the men 
of the Erebus and Terror were supposed to have tra- 
velled on their way to the Great Fish River, but, though 
they found many relics of the expedition, they could 
not discover a single paper or document of any kind. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES 



UP to the middle of the nineteenth century America 
had not played a very important part in the 
history of Arctic exploration. In 1853, however, an 
expedition set out under the command of Dr Elisha 
Kent Kane — the young doctor who accompanied 
Lieutenant De Haven in the Advance and Rescue — 
which won immortality for itself by penetrating Smith 
Sound to a point never reached by any previous 
explorer. Although Kane had special instructions 
from the Secretary of the United States Navy to 
"conduct an expedition to the Arctic seas in search 
of Sir John Franklin," it is really hardly possible 
to regard his enterprise as a serious part of the 
Franklin search, for it concerned itself with a region 
in which there was no possibility of finding any 
traces of the missing explorers. 

The ship chosen for the expedition was our old 
friend the Advance^ and the expenses were shared by 
Mr Grinnell, Mr Peabody, and a number of American 
scientific institutions. The crew consisted of seventeen 
officers and men, among them being Brooks and Morton, 
both of whom had served under De Haven, and Isaac 
Israel Hayes, a young surgeon, who was destined to 
conduct an expedition on his own account later on. 
The equipment of the ship seems to have been carried 



182 



VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES 183 

out with but little regard to the laws of hygiene, as 
recognised by Arctic explorers. " We took with us," 
says Kane, " some 2000 lbs. of pemmican, a parcel of 
Borden's meat biscuit, some packages of exsiccated 
potato, some pickled cabbage, and a liberal quantity 
of American dried fruits and vegetables. Besides these 
we had the salt beef and pork of the navy ration, hard 
biscuit and flour. ... I hoped to obtain some fresh 
provisions in addition before reaching the upper coast 
of Greenland." Such a dietary as this made it almost 
inevitable that scurvy would break out, and, as will be 
seen later on, the crew suffered terribly from the ravages 
of this fearful disease. 

It was on May 30, 1853, that the Advance set sail from 
New York, never to return. Her passage north through 
Baffin Bay was by no means free from difficulties, but 
by August 6 she was in sight of Cape Alexander and 
Cape Isabella, the tremendous cliffs which guard the 
entrance to Smith Sound. On the following morning, 
as he was nearing Littleton Island, which lies well within 
the mouth of the sound, Kane was disappointed to see 
the ominous ice-blink ahead of him, which, taken in 
conjunction with the fact that the wind was freshening 
from the northward, augured ill for the future. However, 
he decided to press on as best he could, only pausing 
to place a boat and a store of provisions en cache on the 
island, a step on which he had good cause to congratulate 
himself later on. 

On the next day he first closed with the ice, and 
began his attempt to bore his way through. A fog, 
however, compelled him to beat a retreat into a land- 
locked cove, which he named " Refuge Harbour," where 



1 84 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

he had to remain for several days. On the 13th, taking 
advantage of a change in the weather, he attempted to 
push on once more, but he was constantly hampered by 
gales ; these, by the 20th, had increased to a hurricane, 
which very nearly made an end of the whole party. 

By the 22nd the storm had abated, and Kane was 
able to proceed on his way. His rate of progress, 
however, was exceedingly slow, for he was obliged 
to send men on to the pack with a tracking rope to 
drag the ship along as best they could. On the 
following day he found that he had reached lat. 78 
41' N., a point 13' higher than that reached by 
Inglefield, and farther north than any explorer, with 
the exception of Parry, had ever penetrated. He 
now began to realise that there was very little 
prospect of his being able to proceed further that 
year, and he had to confess that he did not like 
the idea of being obliged to spend a winter in 
so northerly a latitude, as he was so surrounded 
with ice that his chances of escape next year were 
uncertain. He accordingly called a meeting of his 
officers and crew, and took their opinion upon the 
situation. Why he took this course is not particularly 
clear, for the opinions expressed at that meeting did 
not influence him in the least. Only one member of 
the expedition was in favour of remaining where 
they were, while all the rest desired to return south 
without any delay whatever ; yet Kane promptly 
decided in favour of the former course, and set about 
finding winter quarters for the Advance. These he 
eventually discovered in Rensselaer Harbour, lat. 
78° 37' N., long. 71 W. 



VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES 185 

The cold that winter was intense, and the ship's 
thermometers ranged from 6o° to 75 below zero. Nor 
did spring bring much improvement in the conditions, 
and Kane found himself obliged to carry out the work 
of preparation for his sledge journeys in very trying 
circumstances. The matter, however, was not of a 
nature that would brook delay, so ten men under 
Mr Brooks, the first officer, were sent off to place a 
store of provisions en cache at a point about ten days' 
journey from the brig. 

The whole of the party came within an ace of perish- 
ing on the ice, and had it not been for the efforts of 
Olsen, the sailing master, Sontag, the astronomer, 
and Petersen, the interpreter, who staggered back to 
the ship in search of relief, they must have been frozen 
to death. As it was, two men died of cold and 
exposure. 

Towards the end of April Kane set out on that sledge 
journey along the east shore of Smith Sound which 
has raised him to the front rank of Arctic explorers. 
His expedition was conducted in the face of two great 
difficulties — sickness and lack of provisions. As early 
as May 30 the scurvy which had attacked the crew 
during the winter reappeared, and many members of 
the party fell victims to it, Kane himself suffering so 
severely that his limbs became quite rigid, and he had 
to be lashed to the sledge. The shortage of provisions 
was not due to any lack of care in the preparations for 
the expedition, but to the depredations of the bears, 
which had found the contents of the caches so much to 
their liking that they had completely demolished them. 

" The pemmican," says Kane, " was covered with 



1 86 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

blocks of stone, which it had required the labour of 
three men to adjust ; but the extraordinary strength 
of the bear had enabled him to force aside the heaviest 
rocks, and his pawing had broken the iron casks 
which held our pemmican literally into chips. Our 
alcohol cask, which had cost me a separate and 
special journey in the late fall to deposit, was so com- 
pletely destroyed that we could not find a stave 
of it." 

In spite of these difficulties, however, Kane suc- 
ceeded in reaching the Great Glacier of Humboldt, 
that tremendous sea of ice, one of the largest of its 
kind, which stretches from 79 12' to 8o° 12'. By the 
end of the first week in May the condition of the party 
had become so bad that it was useless for them to 
attempt to proceed any further. Kane was delirious, 
his companions were almost past walking, and it was 
only through the most heroic perseverance that they 
succeeded in reaching the ship at all. 

For a few days after their return the doctor had his 
hands full, but under his skilful treatment the patients 
recovered rapidly, and the work of exploration was 
immediately resumed. The first to leave the ship was 
Dr Hayes, who was sent off with a sledge and a team 
of dogs to explore the country north and east of Ingle- 
field's Cape Sabine. The dogs gave him some little 
trouble, as their harness was constantly breaking, and 
the only material at hand for repairing it consisted of 
his own sealskin breeches, large portions of which he 
was obliged to sacrifice for the good of the cause. 
However, he prosecuted his explorations as far as 
Dobbin Bay before turning back to the ship. 



VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES 187 

Though he had gained a great deal of valuable 
knowledge concerning the coast-line on either side of 
Smith Sound, Kane was still uncertain whether he was 
in a channel leading into a polar sea or in a cul-de-sac. 
From his observations of the tides and the drift of the 
ice he was inclined to take the former view, and, in the 
hope of setting all doubts upon the subject at rest, he 
decided to send out another party, with dogs, which 
was to be subsisted as far as the Great Glacier by 
provisions carried by a foot party in advance. Un- 
fortunately scurvy is not a disease which is thrown off 
easily, and, when the time for making up these parties 
arrived, only five men were found to be in reasonably 
good health. He did the best that he possibly could 
in the circumstances. He told off Morton, M'Gary, 
and three men to take provisions to the Great Glacier, 
where they were to be joined by Hans Christian, the 
hunter of the party, with dogs. Morton and Hans 
were then to cross the strait and advance along the 
distant coast as far as they could. 

The two explorers attacked their part of the task 
with immense ardour, and eventually succeeded in 
penetrating as far as Cape Constitution. They re- 
turned to the ship with marvellous tales of open seas 
and waves dashing against the cliffs, which rejoiced 
Kane's heart exceedingly, for they not only supported 
his theories, but they also gave colour to the popular 
fallacy that an ice-free ocean existed in the direction 
of the Pole. Unfortunately, however, it subsequently 
transpired that Morton and Hans were quite mistaken. 
There is, of course, no reason to suppose that their 
stories were mere flights of imagination, composed for 



1 88 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the express benefit of their commander. Other ex- 
plorers have made similar illusory discoveries, and have 
chronicled them in perfectly good faith. No doubt 
Morton and Hans honestly believed that they saw an 
open polar sea off Cape Constitution ; the fact remains, 
however, that they saw nothing of the kind. 

By the beginning of June 1854, Kane had begun to 
realise that he was in a very uncomfortable situation. 
All his men were diseased, and several of them were 
completely disabled ; fuel and food were becoming very 
short ; and, to crown all, there seemed no prospect of 
extricating his ship that year. He soon came to the con- 
clusion that the only thing for him to do was to attempt 
to reach Beech ey Island, and there to ask for assistance 
from Sir Edward Belcher. Accordingly, he patched 
up his whale-boat to the best of his ability, and, taking 
with him the only five members of his crew who were 
in reasonably good health, he started off on his hazard- 
ous voyage. He was not, however, destined to get 
very far, for he found the mouth of Smith Sound so 
cumbered with ice that he had no choice but to give 
orders for a retreat on the ship, which he reached on 
August 6. 

A careful inspection of his stores now forced him to 
the conclusion that he must cut down the allowance of 
fuel. Here is the passage in his journal in which he 
records the step. " Reduced our allowance of wood to 
six pounds a meal. This, among eighteen mouths, is 
one-third of a pound of fuel each. It allows us coffee 
twice a day and soup once. Our fare, besides this, is 
cold pork boiled in quantity and eaten as required. 
This sort of thing works badly, but I must reserve coal 



VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES 189 

for other emergencies. I see darkness ahead. I in- 
spected the ice again to-day. Bad ! bad ! — I must look 
another winter in the face. I do not shrink from the 
thought ; but, while we have a chance ahead, it is my 
first duty to have all things in readiness to meet it. It 
is horrible — yes, that is the word — to look forward to 
another year of disease and darkness to be met without 
fresh food and without fuel. I should meet it with 
more tempered sadness if I had no comrades to think 
for and protect." 

There was now only one expedient to be tried, and 
that was a land journey in search of succour from the 
Eskimos. Accordingly Hayes, Petersen and seven 
men set out from the ship on August 28, leaving the 
rest of their companions to shift for themselves as best 
they could. Had it not been for an alliance which they 
made with a tribe of Eskimos, whose settlement lay 
some seventy-five miles from the ship, they would pro- 
bably have perished miserably of cold and starvation. 
By the terms of this alliance the natives undertook to 
refrain from stealing from the ship, and to supply the 
sailors with fresh meat and dogs, while Kane in return 
promised them the assistance of his men on their hunt- 
ing expeditions, and undertook to provide them with 
needles, knives, and other trifles dear to the heart of the 
native. The sledge journey from the ship to the 
settlement and back was, however, so long and arduous 
that Kane only undertook it when it was absolutely 
necessary. 

On December 7 a number of Eskimos put in an 
appearance bringing with them two members of the 
exploring party. From them Kane learnt that they 



i 9 o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

had failed hopelessly in their mission, and that their 
comrades were housed at a settlement 200 miles away. 
He accordingly sent back the Eskimo escort with such 
supplies as he could spare to bring back the remainder 
of his friends. So rapidly did the natives travel that 
five days later they were back again with Hayes and 
his party, all of whom were in a state of collapse. 
Indeed, had it not been for the great kindness with 
which they had been treated by the Etah Eskimos they 
must inevitably have perished. 

A more unutterably miserable winter was probably 
never passed by any band of Arctic explorers. As the 
anti-scorbutics, the food and the fuel failed, the con- 
dition of the men grew worse and worse, and Kane 
made up his mind that as soon as spring came round 
he would spare no efforts to make his way to civilised 
regions. The only person on board who seems to 
have been reasonably happy was the hunter, Hans 
Christian. While all his comrades were wondering 
how in the world they were to support life, he had 
fallen head over ears in love with a fair Eskimo damsel 
of Etah, to whom he intended to get married as soon 
as he could make his way to the nearest settlement. 

With the details of the return journey we need not 
concern ourselves. It began in May, and after almost 
superhuman exertions, the party succeeded in reaching 
Upernivik on August 3. Thence they were taken back 
to the United States in the squadron which, under the 
command of Lieutenant Harstene, had been sent out 
to their rescue. 

In the following year Hayes, Kane's surgeon, set out 
in the schooner United States on an expedition, the 



VOYAGES OF KANE AND HAYES 191 

object of which was to verify Morton's story of the 
open polar sea, in which the worthy doctor had the 
firmest belief. The winter was marked by a tragedy, 
for Sontag, the astronomer and probably the most 
valuable member of the party, was frozen to death on 
a sledging expedition. Had he been spared he might 
have saved Hayes from perpetrating the extraordinary 
series of blunders which were the most startling feature 
of his spring journey up the coast of Grinnell Land. 
Not only did he make a number of unreliable observa- 
tions, with the result that his chart had to be entirely 
altered by subsequent explorers, but he also imagined 
that he saw a magnificent polar sea, which proved 
ultimately to be nothing but the southern half of 
Kennedy Channel. This part of the channel freezes 
late and opens early, owing to the exceptionally high 
tides, and is rarely entirely closed. 



CHAPTER XX 

HALL AND THE " POLARIS " 

WE now come to one of the most curious figures 
in the whole history of Arctic exploration, 
that of the American, Charles Francis Hall, who, in 
the year 1864, set sail for Smith Sound in the barque 
Polaris. Hall came from Cincinnati, and in his earlier 
days he followed the peaceful avocation of a black- 
smith. He was an ambitious man, however, and 
something of a dreamer, and he had not the least 
intention of spending all his days at the forge. 
Journalism claimed his attention for a while, and he 
became editor of the Cincinnati Daily Penny Press, 
but his heart yearned towards the Polar regions, and, 
though he had never seen the sea in his life, he felt 
himself irresistibly impelled to quit the life in which 
he was already beginning to win some measure of 
success for the more hazardous career of an Arctic 
explorer. 

It was probably the fate of the Franklin expedition 
which first made him turn his thoughts seriously in 
this direction. He firmly believed that the English 
explorers had been absolutely wrong in their methods 
of conducting the search. The only way by which 
success could possibly be obtained was, he imagined, 
by settling among the Eskimos, by acquiring their 
language, their ways and their confidence, and so 
192 






HALL AND THE "POLARIS" 193 

obtaining from them any information which they might 
possess concerning the fate of Franklin's party, many 
of whom he believed to be still alive. 

Hall seems to have imagined that he was " called " 
to undertake this task himself, so, with an energy and 
enterprise which must command our admiration, he 
promptly set about the fulfilment of his mission. 

Funds having been provided by Henry Grinnell and 
a number of other men who were interested in the 
project, he set sail in the barque George Henry with 
a crew of thirty officers and men, including an in- 
terpreter. His object was to proceed direct to Boothia, 
and there to spend three years among the natives, 
living with them as one of themselves, and completing 
the history of the Franklin expedition. This scheme, 
however, he only partially fulfilled. He lived with the 
natives, it is true, and became by far the greatest 
authority of the day on their manners and customs, 
but, beyond demonstrating that what was known as 
Frobisher Strait was in reality a bay, he did nothing 
towards adding to the world's knowledge of the Arctic 
regions, or towards elucidating the mystery of the fate 
of the Franklin expedition. He returned home in 
1862, and occupied himself for some time in writing 
up an account of his experiences. 

Two years later he sailed in the barque Monticello 
on his second expedition. On this occasion he made 
for Repulse Bay, where he proposed getting into touch 
with the natives and acquiring from them all the 
information that they possessed about Franklin's party 
and ships. Unfortunately, it appears that the natives 
knew how dear his mission was to him, and, not 

N 



i 9 4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

wishing to disappoint him, employed their imagi- 
nation to fill in the gaps in their actual knowledge. 
As was only inevitable, Hall ultimately discovered 
that the circumstantial tales with which they regaled 
him were largely flights of fancy, and, completely disillu- 
sioned, he made his way home again to America. 

During his sojourn with the Eskimos, however, he 
had acquired a real taste for Arctic exploration, and 
he at once decided that, as there seemed to be nothing 
further to be learned about the Erebus and Terror, he 
had better direct his attention towards the North Pole. 
He was a man of unbounded enterprise, and he soon 
found friends who were ready to help him to launch 
his new project. Chief among these was Mr Robeson, 
Secretary of the American Navy Department, through 
whose offices Congress voted him $50,000 towards his 
expenses. A wooden river gunboat of 387 tons, origin- 
ally called the Periwinkle but rechristened the Polaris, 
was placed at his disposal, and in this he set sail from 
New London on July 3, 1871. 

Truth to tell, the expedition was never really marked 
out for success, as is pointed out by Sir A. H. Markham 
in the following passage : " He (Hall) had no ad- 
vantages of education, and was unacquainted with 
nautical astronomy. He was thus in no sense a 
seaman, but rather an enthusiastic leader depending 
on others to navigate his vessel and to render his 
discoveries useful. He possessed, however, one great 
advantage. His two previous expeditions had thor- 
oughly acclimatised him, and given him a complete 
knowledge of Eskimo life. The men who accompanied 
him were also badly chosen. Buddington was an old 



HALL AND THE "POLARIS'' 195 

whaling captain, without any interest in the under- 
taking ; and Tyson (the assistant navigator) was a man 
of the same stamp. Chester, the mate, was a good 
seaman and excellent harpooner, but one who had 
merely shipped from the inducement of high pay. Dr 
Bessels, a former student of Heidelberg, who had 
served in one of the German Arctic expeditions and 
in the Prussian army during the invasion of France, 
was the only man of scientific attainments in the ship, 
and the only man, besides Hall, who felt any enthu- 
siasm for the objects of the voyage. Altogether it was 
an ill-assorted company, without zeal for discovery, 
without discipline or control, and in which every man 
considered himself as good as his neighbour." 

It was, perhaps, a little unfortunate that this expedi- 
tion, which was so poorly adapted to make full use of 
its opportunities, should have been more favoured by 
luck than any of its predecessors. After stopping at 
Upernivik to pick up Hans Christian, who brought 
with him his wife and a family which had already 
attained to considerable dimensions, the Polaris sailed 
merrily on past Rensselaer Harbour, through the so- 
called " open Polar Sea," through Kennedy Channel, 
across Hall Basin and up Robeson Channel, till, on 
August 30, she was in lat. 82° 16', 250 miles, beyond 
the furthest point reached by any previous explorer. 
It seems, indeed, that she might have penetrated even 
further than that without much difficulty had Hall 
only been a practical seaman, for the stream of ice by 
which she was stopped was quite insignificant, and 
there was a magnificent water-sky away to the north- 
ward. Buddington, however, was dead against the 



i 9 6 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

attempt, and Hall, of course, was obliged to follow his 
advice, so the Polaris was allowed to drift southward, 
until, on September 3, when she had reached lat. 
8i° 38', she found herself in a small indentation called 
Thank God Bay, in which she was made snug for the 
winter. 

Two months later a gloom was cast over the com- 
pany by the tragic death of Hall. On returning, rather 
chilled, from a sledge journey, he was unwise enough 
to descend at once to the cabin and drink hot coffee, 
though his experience of life in the Polar regions ought 
to have taught him that it was extremely dangerous to 
do this without first divesting himself of his furs and 
allowing his system to be toned up to the high tem- 
perature of his cabin. Within a few hours he became 
seriously ill, and a fortnight later he died. Dr Bessels 
gave it as his opinion that his death was due to 
apoplexy. 

The command now devolved on Buddington, who 
showed himself singularly unfitted for his duties. In 
the first place, he abolished the Sunday services, a step 
which is always inadvisable, and which, in this case, was 
absolutely criminal, as the men were quite ill-disciplined 
enough as it was. In the second place, he developed 
a taste for sending out exploring parties and calling 
them back to the ship again for no comprehensible 
reason, so that no discoveries of any value were 
made, in spite of the exceptionally favourable situa- 
tion in which the expedition was then placed. It 
was, however, after the Polaris had been set free and 
while she was on her way home that he gave the most 
convincing proof of his incompetence, with the result 



HALL AND THE "POLARIS" 197 

that a large portion of his crew came within an ace of 
absolute disaster. The ship happened to be caught 
in the ice with which she drifted into Baffin Bay. On 
October 15 she was severely nipped, whereupon the 
panic-stricken Buddington promptly cried out, " Throw 
everything upon the ice." Of course the whole ship 
was instantly cast into the direst confusion. The 
sailors hurled everything that they could lay hands on 
on to the floe, including a bundle which was subse- 
quently found to contain two of Hans Christian's 
offspring. Men, women, and children leapt after them, 
and though Tyson did his best to calm them his efforts 
were not of much avail. While everything was still 
in confusion and while half the crew were on the ice 
and the rest on board, the ship suddenly freed her- 
self and flew off before the wind at the rate of ten or 
eleven knots an hour. 

It was not until morning came that the castaways 
were able to take a serious survey of their situation. 
They found that they numbered nineteen, among them 
being two Eskimo women, and Hans Christian's 
youngest child, Charlie Polaris, which had seen the 
light of day on board the ship after which he was 
named while she was lying in winter quarters. The 
floe on which they were cast away was over a mile 
in diameter, but though, for the time being, it made 
a serviceable raft, there was, of course, no knowing 
when it would split up. 

For over six months, that is to say, from the middle 
of October 1872 to the end of April 1873, the floe 
drifted steadily south, diminishing in size as it went. 
The most serious split occurred on March 11, after 



198 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

which it only measured a hundred yards in length by 
seventy in breadth. Provisions, too, which were never 
exactly plentiful — they had started on their adven- 
turous voyage equipped only with eleven and a half 
bags of bread, fourteen small hams, some cans of meat 
and soup, a little chocolate and sugar, and 630 pounds 
of pemmican — became painfully scarce, and had they 
not been able to eke out their menu with a few dogs 
which had been thrown on to the ice, and with sundry 
seals which had been caught during the latter part of 
their voyage, they would have died of hunger. 

Fortunately for them, the floe drifted down into the 
track of the whalers, and on the last day of April they 
were picked up by the Tigress, of Conception Bay, 
Newfoundland, which conveyed them safely to St 
John's. 

Of the remainder of the voyage of the Polaris her- 
self there is very little to be said. With fourteen men 
on board, she was driven north to Life Boat Cove, 
where she was safely anchored. Her crew promptly 
unloaded her and built a house on shore, where they 
spent the winter in tolerably comfortable circum- 
stances, being supplied by the Eskimos with all the 
fresh meat that they required. In the spring they 
made a couple of boats out of the ship's timbers, in 
which they set sail for the south on June 3. They 
were ultimately picked up by the whaler Ravenscraig 
of Dundee. 

As has already been indicated, the results of this 
expedition might have been far greater than was 
actually the case. The Polaris, it is true, penetrated 
further north than ever ship had penetrated before. 



HALL AND THE POLARIS" 199 

Dr Bessels made many valuable researches into animal 
and vegetable life in those regions, and it was con- 
clusively shown that Kane's open Polar Sea and the 
coast-line laid down by Hayes were quite fictitious. 
But more might easily have been achieved had the 
expedition been better conducted. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE "GERMANIA" AND THE "HANSA" 

AS has been seen in the last chapter, Hall was first 
inspired to enter upon the field of Arctic ex- 
ploration by the loss of the Franklin expedition, and 
we have, in consequence, abandoned the true chrono- 
logical order of events and dealt with his expedition 
out of its place. We must now hark back to the year 
1868, when Dr Petermann, the famous German geo- 
grapher, fitted out a small ship called the Germania 
for a voyage of discovery along the east coast of 
Greenland, thus earning for himself the distinction of 
being the first of his race to send out an expedition to 
the Polar regions. Dr Petermann himself took no active 
part in the work, but entrusted the command to Captain 
Karl Koldewey, an expert in maritime matters, who 
had studied navigation at the Polytechnic school in 
Hanover, and physics and astronomy at the University 
of Gottingen. 

His first trip in the Germanta, in which he was 
accompanied by a small crew of only eleven men, was 
not attended by any very remarkable results. Pack- 
ice frustrated his attempt to coast northward along the 
shores of Greenland, and compelled him to set his 
course eastward to the Spitzbergen seas, where he 
succeeded in reaching the latitude of 8i° 5'. He then 



"GERMANIA" AND "HANS A" 201 

turned back down the Hinlopen Strait, and made 
his way to Bergen, where he arrived on the last day 
of September. 

His second expedition, which sailed in the following 
year, was much more fully equipped, and on this occa- 
sion the Germania, a screw-steamer of 140 tons, which 
was manned by a crew of seventeen officers and men, 
was accompanied by the Hansa, a schooner of y6\ tons, 
commanded by Captain Hegemann, and having four- 
teen officers and men on board. As it was intended 
that this expedition should spend a winter within the 
Arctic circle especial pains were expended upon the 
commissariat department, and no better provisioned 
ships had ever set out on a voyage of adventure. 

For a while progress was slow, owing to the heavy 
gales which prevailed during the latter half of the 
month. They pressed steadily on, however, keeping 
I well in company with one another, and at the beginning 
of July the knowledge that they were now reaching the 
higher latitudes was brought home to them by the fact 
that the sun did not set until 10.15, and that it was 
possible to read the smallest print at midnight without 
the aid of artificial light A few days later, when they 
were off the coast of Jan Mayen Island, they saw the 
Imidnight sun for the first time, and Dr Borgen and Dr 
Copeland — the latter an Englishman who had studied 
;and worked in Germany — embarked with increased 
ardour on that series of scientific observations which 
was the most valuable result of the expedition. 

It was soon after this that a misunderstanding 
Dccurred which resulted in the two ships being sepa- 
rated for ever. They were sailing along in company, 



202 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

searching for a passage through the ice which would, it 
was hoped, extend far away to the north. Koldewey, 
wishing to consult with Hegemann, signalled to him to 
come within hail, but he, unfortunately, misunderstood 
the signal, and, setting more sail, disappeared into the 
fog before Koldewey could follow him. 

Separated from his consort, Hegemann did all that 
lay in his power to reach Sabine Island, the appointed 
rendezvous in the event of any accident of this nature. 
The weather, however, was against him, and, try as he 
would, he could not succeed in approaching within 
thirty - five nautical miles of his destination. The 
Hansa now found herself in serious difficulties. For 
many weeks she had been fighting against the ice, 
which was rapidly hemming her in on every side, but 
lack of steam power made it impossible for her either 
to reach Sabine Island or to force her way through to 
the landward water which lay along the coast. On 
September 6 her captain had no choice but to lay her 
up between two promontories of a large ice-field, and 
on the following day she was completely frozen in. 

It was now, of course, obvious that the crew would 
have to spend the winter where they were, and they 
instantly set about building a house of coal bricks, of 
which they had an ample supply on board. These 
formed an excellent building material, since they ab- 
sorbed the damp and kept the warmth in the room, 
while water and snow made a perfect substitute for 
mortar. " We only needed," says Hegemann, "to strew 
finely-powdered snow between the grooves and cracks, 
pour water upon it, and in ten minutes all was frozen 
into a strong compact mass." So well did the men 



"GERMANIA" AND "HANS A" 203 

work that the house was finished and provisioned for 
two months in little more than a week. 

They were not much too soon, for before the month 
was over the fate of the unfortunate Hansa was sealed. 
On October 8 a gale arose which blew violently for 
several days. On the 18th, the ice began to make itself 
conspicuous by " thrusting and pressing against the 
ship. This unpleasant noise lasted until the afternoon. 
At regular intervals underneath, the ice, like a suc- 
cession of waves, groaned and cracked, squashed and 
puffed ; now sounding like the banging of doors, now 
like many human voices raised against one another ; 
and lastly, like a drag on the wheel of a railway engine. 
The evident immediate cause of this crushing was that 
our field had turned in drifting, and was now pressed 
closer to the coast ice. . . . For a time the Hansa was 
spared, though trembling violently. The masts often 
swayed so much that it seemed as though someone was 
climbing them." Worse, however, was to follow, for on 
the next day the pressure of the ice became so terrible 
that the deck seams sprang and the bow of the ship 
was forced upwards seventeen feet. " The rising of the 
ship," says Hegemann, "was an extraordinary and 
awful, yet splendid spectacle, of which the whole crew 
were witnesses from the ice. In all haste the clothing, 
nautical instruments, journals, and cards were taken 
over to the landing bridge. The after part of the ship, 
unfortunately, would not rise, and therefore the stern 
post had to bear the most frightful pressure, and the 
conviction that the ship must soon break up forced 
itself upon our minds. . . . The first thing to be done 
was to bring all necessary and useful things from the 



204 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

tween decks on to the ice — bedding, clothing, more 
provisions and coal. Silently were all the heavy chests 
and barrels pushed over the hatchway. First comes the 
weighty iron galley, then the two stoves are happily 
hoisted over; their possession ensures us the enjoyment 
of warm food, the heating of our coal house, and other 
matters indispensable for a wintering on the floe. At 
three o'clock the water in the cabin had reached the 
table, and all movable articles were floating. The fear 
that we should not have enough fuel made us grasp at 
every loose piece of wood and throw it on the ice. The 
sinking of the ship was now almost imperceptible, it 
must have found support on a tongue of ice or some 
promontory of our field. There was still a small 
medicine chest and a few other things, which, in our 
future position, would be great treasures, such as the 
cabin-lamp, books, cigars, boxes of games, etc. The 
snow roof (with which the Hansa had been equipped 
for the winter) and the sails were brought on to the 
ice ; but still all necessary work was not yet accom- 
plished. Round about the ship lay a chaotic mass of 
heterogeneous articles, and groups of feeble rats strug- 
gling with death and trembling with the cold ! " 

By degrees the crew got things in order and settled 
down for the winter in their fairly comfortable though 
not particularly secure abode. Occasionally they had a 
bad fright. On the afternoon of January 2, for example, 
as they were resting after dinner, they heard " a scraping, 
blustering, crackling, sawing, grating, and jarring sound, 
as if some unhappy ghost was wandering under our 
floe. Perplexed, we all jumped up and went out ; we 
thought that our store-house had fallen in. Some of 



"GERMANIA" AND "HANS A" 205 

the sailors, going in front with the lamp, carefully- 
searched the path to it. But in whatever direction the 
light fell on the sparkling and glittering ice-walls we 
saw nothing. Immovable hung the rigid icicles, often 
a foot long ; evidently nothing was amiss here. We 
rummaged in the snow path before the house. Although 
completely snowed up (indeed, the whole house was 
buried more than a foot deep in ice), we all rushed out, 
but, of course, we could not see more than the steps, 
nor hear anything but the howling of the storm. Still, 
between whiles, we could detect the same rubbing and 
grinding. For a change we laid ourselves flat down, 
with our ears to the floor, and could then hear a rust- 
ling like the singing of ice when closely jammed, and 
as if water was running under our great floe. There 
could be no doubt that it stood in great danger of 
being smashed to pieces, either from drifting over 
sunken rocks and bursting up, or breaking over the 
ice-border ; perhaps both at once. We packed our furs 
and filled our knapsacks with provisions. Our position, 
if the floe should be destroyed, seemed hopeless." 

Next morning they found that huge masses of the 
floe in the neighbourhood of the house had broken off, 
and, on the following day, when the storm had cleared 
off and they were able to take a careful survey of the 
situation, they discovered, to their horror, that it was 
not half its former size. The distance from the house 
to the edge of the ice, which was once 500 paces, was 
now only 200 ; except on one side, where the distance, for- 
merly 3000 paces, was now diminished to 1000, while the 
diameter of the floe, which, before the storm was two 
nautical miles, was now barely one. The worst, how- 



206 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

ever, was yet to come, for on January 1 1 splits appeared 
in the immediate neighbourhood of the house, which so 
reduced the floe that it soon measured only 1 50 feet in 
diameter, and on this frail raft the unfortunate crew 
experienced one of the most terrific storms that they 
had encountered. By a miracle they escaped with 
their lives, and by the beginning of February their 
trials, which they had borne with marvellous patience, 
were practically over. 

During the whole of this time they had been drifting 
steadily south within sight of the barren shore of Green- 
land, which, unfortunately, the ice had never allowed 
them to reach. On May 7, however, the sea cleared, 
and it need hardly be said that they seized gladly on 
the opportunity of taking to their boats, in which they 
reached Friedrichsthal on June 7. There they received 
a ready welcome from the Moravian missionaries, and 
eventually secured a passage home from Julianshaab, 
a seaport on the west coast of South Greenland. 

In the meanwhile, Koldewey, after waiting some time 
for the Hansa, was obliged by the approach of winter 
to find a harbour for his ship off Pendulum Islands. 
In the spring he went out on a sledging expedition 
with Payer, during the course of which he reached lat 
77 01', the highest point attained up till then on th 
east coast of Greenland. While sailing home in the 
summer, he discovered the magnificent Franz Josei 
Fiord, at the head of which Mount Petermann rears its 
head to a height of at least 1 2,000 feet above the sea 









CHAPTER XXII 

THE VOYAGE OF THE " TEGETTHOFF " 

MANY routes to the North Pole had now been 
tried and found wanting. Expeditions had 
started out by Behring Strait, through Smith Sound, 
up the eastern coast of Greenland and from Spitzbergen, 
but they had one and all been frustrated by those great 
Arctic currents, which, rushing down from the Polar 
basin, carried with them such quantities of ice that real 
progress towards the Pole was practically impossible. 
There still remained one route, however, which had 
scarcely been tried at all, namely that which lay round 
the north-east shores of Nova Zembla. Many noted 
geographers held that the Gulf Stream did not dis- 
appear at the North Cape, and that by following its 
warmer waters it might be possible to avoid the Arctic 
currents and the difficulties which followed in their 
train. It was with a view to testing this theory that 
the Austrian expedition of 1872-74 set out in the 
Tegetthoff, under the joint command of Lieutenant Carl 
Weyprecht, to whom was entrusted all matters con- 
nected with navigation, and Lieutentant Julius Payer, 
who was to be responsible for the conduct of the 
sledging operations. 

In June 1871 Weyprecht and Payer sailed in the 

Isbjorn on a preliminary excursion to spy out the land, 

207 



208 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

or rather, perhaps, the sea, and, the result of their 
observations being entirely satisfactory, it was definitely 
decided that they should adventure in that direction in 
the following year. The Tegetthoff, a steamer of 220 
tons burden, was accordingly put in a state of thorough 
repair and fitted out for two years and a half. Her 
crew numbered twenty-two, so that, with her com- 
manders, she carried twenty-four souls, as well as eight 
dogs. 

The expedition sailed from Tromso on July 14, and 
eleven days later ice was sighted. At first it afforded 
them no serious difficulties, for the Tegetlhoff was en- 
abled by her steam power to charge the floes and so to 
force her way through those round which she could not 
sail. On August 20, however, she was brought to a 
dead stop by a barrier of ice in lat. 76 22' N., long. 
63 3' E. "Ominous were the events of that day," 
says Payer, " for immediately after we had made the 
Tegetthoff fast to that floe, the ice closed in upon us 
from all sides, and we became close prisoners in its 
grasp. No water was to be seen around us, and never 
again were we destined to see our vessel in water. . . . 
We were, in fact, no longer discoverers, but passengers 
against our will on the ice. From day to day we hoped 
for the hour of our deliverance ! At first we expected 
it hourly, then daily, then from week to week ; then at 
the seasons of the year and changes of the weather, 
then in the chances of new years ! But that hour never 
came." 

The Tegetthoff, firmly fixed on her floe, now became 
the sport of the winds, for in that sea it is the wind that 
controls the ice-movements. By October 12 she had 



VOYAGE OF THE "TEGETTHOFF" 209 

travelled so far northward that Nova Zembla had 
completely disappeared from view. On the next day a 
great excitement took place, for the floe burst right 
under the ship. " Rushing on deck," says Payer, " we 
discovered that we were surrounded and squeezed by 
the ice ; the after-part of the ship was already nipped 
and pressed, and the rudder, which was the first to 
encounter its assault, shook and groaned ; but as its 
great weight did not admit of its being shipped, we 
were content to lash it firmly. We next sprang on the 
ice, the tossing, tremulous motion of which literally filled 
the air with noises, as of shrieks and howls, and we 
quickly got on board all the materials which were lying 
on the floe, and bound the fissures of the ice hastily 
together by ice-anchors and cables. . . . But, just as in 
the risings of a people, the wave of revolt spreads on 
every side, so now the ice uprose against us. Mountains 
threateningly reared themselves from out the level fields 
of ice, and the low groans which issued from its depths 
grew into a deep rumbling sound, and at last rose into 
a furious howl as of myriads of voices. Noise and con- 
fusion reigned supreme, and step by step destruction 
drew nigh in the crashing together of the fields of ice. 
Our floe was now crushed, and its blocks, piled up 
into mountains, drove hither and thither. Here they 
towered fathoms high above the ship, and forced the 
projecting timbers of massive oak, as if in mockery of 
their purpose, against the hull of the vessel; there 
masses of ice fell down as into an abyss under the 
ship, to be engulfed in the rushing waters, so that 
the quantity of ice beneath the ship was continually 
increased, and at last it began to raise her quite above 
o 



2io ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the level of the sea. About 11.30 in the forenoon, 
according to our usual custom, a portion of the Bible 
was read on deck, and this day, quite accidentally, the 
portion read was the history of Joshua ; but if in his 
day the sun stood still, it was more than the ice showed 
any inclination to do. . . . In all haste we began to 
make ready to abandon the ship, in case it should be 
crushed, a fate which seemed inevitable, if she were not 
sufficiently raised through the pressure of the ice. At 
12.30 the pressure reached a frightful height, every part 
of the vessel strained and groaned ; the crew, who had 
been sent down to dine, rushed on deck. The Tegetthoff 
had heeled over on her side, and huge pillars of ice 
threatened to precipitate themselves upon her. But 
the pressure abated, and the ship righted herself; and 
about one o'clock, when the danger was in some degree 
over, the crew went below to dine. But again a strain 
was felt through the vessel, everything which hung 
freely began to oscillate violently, and all hastened on 
deck, some with the unfinished dinner in their hands, 
others stuffing it into their pockets." 

Instantly the last preparations were made for leaving 
the ship — " whither no one pretended to know : for not 
a fragment of the ice around us had remained whole ; 
nowhere could the eye discover a still perfect and un- 
injured floe, to serve as a place of refuge, as a vast floe 
had before been to the crew of the Hansa. Nay, not a 
block, not a table of ice was at rest, all shapes and sizes 
of it were in active motion, some turning and twisting, 
none on the level. A sledge would at once have been 
swallowed up." 

The party on the Tegetthoff remained for the whole 



VOYAGE OF THE "TEGETTHOFF" 211 

of the winter on the brink of death. When summer 
came round it brought with it hopes of release, but day 
after day passed by and still the floe on which the ship 
was fixed showed no signs of freeing her from its grasp. 
In July 1873 an attempt was made to measure the 
thickness of the ice by means of a borer ; after twenty- 
seven feet had been penetrated the attempt had to be 
abandoned. In August the chances of release began 
to lessen considerably, and the bitter thought was 
beginning to assail the officers and crew that they 
would be obliged to return home without making a 
single discovery when, on the 30th of the month, a 
sudden and unexpected sight infused new life into 
them. "About midday," says Payer, "as we were 
leaning on the bulwarks of the ship and scanning the 
gliding mists, through which the rays of the sun broke 
ever and anon, a wall of mist, lifting itself up suddenly, 
revealed to us afar off in the north-west the outlines of 
bold rocks, which in a few minutes seemed to grow into 
a radiant Alpine land ! At first we all stood transfixed 
and hardly believing what we saw. Then carried away 
by the reality of our good fortune, we burst into shouts 
of joy, ' Land, land, land, at last ! ' There was now not 
a sick man on board the Tegetthoff. The news of the 
discovery spread in an instant. Everyone rushed on 
deck to convince himself, with his own eyes, that the 
expedition was not, after all, a failure — there before us 
lay the prize that could not be snatched from us. Yet 
not by our own action, but through the happy caprice 
of our floe and as in a dream had we won it ; but when 
we thought of the floe, drifting without intermission, we 
felt with redoubled pain that we were at the mercy of 



212 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

its movements. As yet we had secured no winter 
harbour from which the exploration of the strange land 
could be successfully undertaken. For the present, too, 
it was not within the verge of possibility to reach and 
visit it. If we had left the floe, we should have been 
cut off and lost. It was only under the influence of the 
first excitement that we made a rush over our ice-field, 
although we knew that numberless fissures made it 
impossible to reach the land. But, difficulties not- 
withstanding, when we ran to the edge of our floe, we 
beheld from a ridge of ice the mountains and glaciers of 
the mysterious land." 

With all due pomp and circumstance they named 
their new discovery Franz Josef Land, drinking the I 
health of their Emperor as they did so. Their jubila- 
tion, however, was destined to be short-lived, for almost 
immediately a northerly wind arose which drove their 
floe many miles to the south, and Franz Josef Land, 
though still very dear to memory, was completely lost 
to sight. When next they found themselves in its 
neighbourhood, moreover, an event which occurred 
towards the end of September, their sensations were 
less pleasurable, for storms were churning up the ice in 
a most terrifying manner, and they were in imminent 
danger of being wrecked upon a shore which, though 
they viewed it with eyes of pride, looked, as they 
had to admit, distinctly inhospitable. By the ist of 
November, however, the ice had quietened down, and 
Payer came to the conclusion that he might safely 
attempt to effect a landing. The way was difficult, 
lying as it did over masses of broken ice which included 
a rampart fifty feet high, but the men made light of 



VOYAGE OF THE "TEGETTHOFF" 21? 



o 



such obstacles, and it was a proud moment for them 
when they were able to set foot on land which had 
probably never been trodden by a human being 
before. 

They found that the new country consisted of two 
main masses. That on which they had landed they called 
Wilczek Land, and the other they named Zichy Land, 
while the sound which separated them they christened 
Austria Sound. It was a bleak and desolate land 
enough, clothed for the most part in perpetual snow, 
and absolutely devoid of any signs of habitation. The 
vegetation was so scanty that musk-oxen or reindeer 
could not have supported life there, and the place 
seemed to be given over entirely to Polar bears, foxes, 
and a few migratory birds. Everything, however, 
depends on the point of view, and it certainly seemed 
Paradise to the crew of the Tegetthoff. Fortunately 
;for them the ice soon became firmer, and they were 
able to explore the new land with less fear of their line 
of retreat being cut off. During the early spring Payer 
mapped out several of the islands of which he found 
Franz Josef Land to consist, and succeeded in penetrat- 
ing as far north as Cape Fligely, the highest point 
attained in the old world up till then. He also added 
several new lands to the chart, which have been sub- 
sequently shown to be non-existent, among them being 
King Oscar and Petermann Lands. 

It was, of course, perfectly obvious that the ship must 
be abandoned, and during the winter preparations were 
made for taking that step as soon as spring came 
round. The objective was Nova Zembla, where a 
depot of provisions had been established for them 



2i 4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

to meet eventualities. They had no need to make use 
of that depot, however, for while passing Cape Britwin, 
they fell in with a Russian schooner, the Nikolai, which 
took them on board and brought the/n safely back to 
Europe in September 1874. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

NARES AND SMITH SOUND 

AFTER the return of Sir Edward Belcher's expedi- 
tion in 1854 the British Government was content 
to rest on its laurels, so far as Arctic research was con- 
cerned, and to leave the field entirely to Germans, 
Austrians, Americans, and to such private individuals 
as cared to undertake the very heavy cost of equipping 
an expedition for the Polar regions. In the year 1874, 
however, it once again awoke to a sense of its respon- 
sibilities. There was still about the Pole a tract of some 
two and a half million square miles which had never 
been trodden by the foot of a civilised man, and it was 
felt by men of science that no satisfactory data con- 
cerning the cause and the track of storms, together 
with the thousand and one other things concerning the 
sea which commercial nations wish to know, could be 
obtained unless the Polar seas became rather less of a 
sealed book. 

No time was lost in setting about the preparations, 
and in April of the following year two ships were com- 
missioned for the great expedition of 1875-76, and the 
command was entrusted to Captain George S. Nares. 
The ships in question were the Alert, a steam sloop of 
751 tons and 100 horse-power, and the Discovery, a 

steamer of 556 tons and 96 horse-power, which, under 

215 



216 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the name of the Bloodhound had already seen service as 
a whaler. They were fitted with all the most modern 
appliances, and were provisioned for three years, while 
among the officers of the expedition were Albert H. 
Markham, commander of the Alert, Pelham Aldrich, 
who served as a lieutenant on the same ship, and 
Henry F. Stevenson, who was appointed captain of the 
Discovery. 

Accompanied by the store ship Valorous, from which 
they were to take additional supplies at Godhaven, the 
two ships set sail from Portsmouth on May 29, 1875. 
The passage across the Atlantic was long and boisterous, 
but they eventually arrived at Godhaven on July 6, 
where they parted company with the Valorous after 
taking on board everything in the way of provisions 
that they needed as well as twenty-four Greenland 
dogs. At Ritenbenk they shipped more dogs, together 
with two drivers, Petersen, the Dane who had served 
under Hayes, and Frederick, an Eskimo. At Proven 
they touched again, to pick up our old friend Hans 
Christian, whose family, undeterred by their previous 
experiences on the ice-floe, once more insisted on ac- 
companying him. They reached Port Foulke on July 
28, and had the good fortune to find the entrance to 
Smith Sound entirely free from ice. They were not, 
indeed, delayed until they reached Payer Harbour, a 
little south of Cape Sabine, where they were beset in 
the ice for several days, during which time Stevenson 
occupied himself with exploring Foulke Fiord, while 
Nares visited Littleton Island and Life Boat Cove and 
examined the cache left behind by the Polaris. 

The journey northward was pursued with very vary- 



NARES AND SMITH SOUND 217 

ing fortunes. The ice was exceedingly bad, and when 
the ships were not actually beset in it, they were 
occupied in charging their way through it. Little by 
little, however, they made their way up the channel, 
caching large stores of provisions as they went, among 
the chief being a depot of 3600 rations on the Carey 
Islands, another depot of the same size at Cape Hawks, 
and one of 1000 rations at Cape Lincoln. 

But ice was not the only difficulty with which 
Nares had to contend, for Hayes' chart was a source of 
perpetual annoyance to him, and a great part of his 
time was spent in correcting its errors. Cape Frazer 
was placed eight miles and Scoresby Bay twenty miles 
too far north, and the rest of the western coast was so 
badly delineated that Nares pathetically remarked that 
it was often difficult to know exactly where he was. 

Hugging the western shore and taking advantage 
of every channel that opened near the ship, he 
succeeded in reaching Lady Franklin Bay, on the 
other side of which he found a land-locked inlet ; this 
he named Discovery Harbour, and in it he decided to 
leave his companion ship while he himself pushed on 
in the Alert. 

As he ascended the strait he observed that the 
character of the ice changed rapidly. Off Cape Sabine 
the biggest floes were only eight or ten feet thick ; off 
Cape Fraser their thickness increased to twenty feet, 
and the ice was obviously older, " but," he says, " up to 
the present time, when the main pack consisted entirely 
of heavy ice, I had failed to observe that, instead of 
approaching a region favoured with open water and a 
warm climate, we were gradually nearing a sea where 



218 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the ice was of a totally different formation to what we 
had ever before experienced, that few Arctic navigators 
had met, and only one battled with successfully ; that 
in reality we must be approaching the same sea which 
gives birth to the heavy ice met with off the coast of 
America by Collinson and M'Clure, and which the 
latter in 185 1 succeeded in navigating through in a 
sailing vessel for upwards of 100 miles, . . . which Sir 
Edward Parry met with in the same channel in 1820, 
. . . which, passing onwards to the eastward from 
Melville Strait down M'Clintock Channel, beset, and 
never afterwards released, the Erebus and Terror under 
Sir John Franklin and Captain Crozier ; and which, 
intermixed with light Spitzbergen ice, is constantly 
streaming to the southward along the eastern shore of 
Greenland, and there destroyed the Hansa of the last 
German Arctic expedition." In other words, Nares 
was in the middle of the ice formed in the Polar Sea, 
now known as Palaeocrystic, and was the first man 
really to understand its character. 

With some difficulty, the Alert succeeded in making 
her way as far as Floeberg Reach, in lat. 82 25' N., 
long. 62 W., the highest point yet attained by a ship. 
Here Nares determined to spend the winter, for, 
though the situation seemed at first sight to be rather 
exposed, it was well protected by a fringe of heavy 
floes which were grounded in eight to twelve fathoms 
of water. No land was to be seen to the northward, 
and Nares was forced to come to the conclusion that, 
though he had reached the shores of the Arctic Ocean, 
it was the very reverse of that open Polar sea which he 
had hoped to find. 



NARES AND SMITH SOUND 219 

On September 16 the ship was effectually frozen in 
for the winter, and ten days later Captain Markham, 
Lieutenant Parr, and Lieutenant May set off on a 
sledging expedition with the object of establishing 
depots of provisions as far north as they could. They 
accomplished their work well, but at terrible cost, for 
seven men and one officer returned to the ship badly 
frost-bitten, and in three cases amputations were 
necessary. At the same time Pelham Aldrich went 
out on an exploring trip in which he succeeded in 
reaching Parry's latitude of 82 48' N. 

The winter was fairly fine, but bitterly cold — the 
coldest, in fact, on record. The Alert experienced a 
mean temperature for five days and nine hours of 
66. 29/ below zero, while for two separate periods of 
fifteen days each the mercury remained frozen. In the 
middle of March Lieutenants Egerton and Rawson 
attempted to open up communications with the Dis- 
covery, but the attempt ended with disaster, for 
Petersen, who accompanied them, was taken ill on 
the journey, and the whole party had to return. The 
two officers made the most heroic exertions to bring 
him back to health, depriving themselves of their own 
warm clothing and suffering severely in consequence. 
Their efforts were, however, of no avail, for Petersen 
was found to be so badly frost-bitten that both his feet 
had to be amputated, and three months later he 
died of exhaustion. Setting out again, Rawson and 
Egerton, accompanied by two sailors, reached the 
Discovery, and found that her crew had passed a 
comfortable winter, though one man was down with 
scurvy. 



220 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

As soon as April came round Nares began the 
serious work of the spring by sending out two great 
sledge parties, one of which, under Commander Mark- 
ham, was to push as far north as possible, while the 
other, under Lieutenant Aldrich, was to explore the 
northern shores of Grinnell Land. 

Having been accompanied by a supporting party as 
far as Cape Henry, Markham set out over the Polar 
Sea on April 10, 1876. Fearing that they might 
chance upon an open sea, the party took with it two 
boats, which added greatly to their labours, making it 
necessary for them to cover every mile of their journey 
four times. Their way, moreover, lay in peculiarly 
unpleasant places, for the ice-field over which they 
had to travel was like a frozen ocean, the depressions 
between the waves being filled with snow and broken 
pack-ice. One of the boats was soon abandoned, but 
the men dragged the other as far as lat. 83° 20', the 
highest point attained up to that time. 

The homeward journey was even more trying, for 
scurvy had broken out among the men, five out of the 
seventeen had to be placed on the sledges, and many 
of the others could barely drag themselves over the ice. 
It soon became obvious that they could not reach the 
ship without assistance, so Lieutenant Parr gallantly 
volunteered to set out by himself, and performed the 
truly astonishing feat of covering the thirty miles 
which lay between his starting-point and the ship in 
twenty-four hours. The help that he brought back 
was only just in time, for one man died on the way, 
while eleven of the others had to be dragged to the 
ship on sledges. 



NARES AND SMITH SOUND 221 

In many ways Markham's journey was one of the 
most extraordinary on record. Instead of advancing 
at a steady walk, more than half of each day was spent 
by the whole party facing the sledge and dragging it 
forward a few feet at a time. The maximum rate of 
advance was 2f miles a day, the mean rate being i£, 
while, though the distance from the ship to their 
farthest point was only 73 miles, on the outward and 
homeward journeys they actually covered no less than 
521 miles. 

Aldrich's expedition also suffered severely from 
scurvy, but succeeded, nevertheless, in doing excellent 
work, by exploring the northern shores of Grinnell 
Land for 220 miles, that is to say, as far as lat. 82 16' 
N., 86° W. Fortunately Nares, becoming anxious 
about Aldrich's safety, sent out Lieutenant May and two 
sailors to relieve him. It was as well that he did so, for 
he found that only Aldrich and one man were in a fit 
condition to haul, and the whole party would probably 
have perished if it had not been for his timely aid. 

Lieutenant Beaumont's expedition from the Discovery 
also very nearly ended in disaster from the same cause. 
He was especially detailed to explore the coast of 
Greenland to the north, and so well did he fulfil his 
mission that he far outdistanced all his predecessors, 
and succeeded in reaching lat. 82 20' N., 51 W. The 
homeward journey was a long and stern fight against 
disease, which seemed likely to end in disaster when, 
on reaching Robeson Channel, he found the ice too 
rotten to permit them to cross to the Alert. For- 
tunately Rawson and Dr Coppinger arrived just in 
time to save all of the party but two. 



222 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

There were now no fewer than thirty-six cases of 
scurvy on the Alert alone, and Nares decided to return 
as soon as he could break out of winter quarters. He 
was released at the end of July, and in October both 
ships reached England in safety, after a remarkably 
successful voyage, in which great tracts of entirely new 
country had been opened up. 



CHAPTER XXIV 



THE GREELY TRAGEDY 



VALUABLE as were the immediate results of 
Lieutenant Charles Weyprecht's voyage in the 
Tegetthoff, its indirect results were greater still, for he 
came back from his adventurous journey full of plans 
for revolutionising the manner in which Arctic explora- 
tion had been conducted. Up to that time each nation 
or each group of individuals had gone on its own way, 
practically regardless of the scientific or geographic 
work of the others, and there had been no attempt to 
solve the mysteries of the Arctic regions by concerted 
action. In an address delivered before the German 
Scientific and Medical Association of Gratz in 1875, 
however, Weyprecht suggested that the chief of the 
nations engaged in Arctic research should establish a 
number of stations round the Pole, whereat a series of 
simultaneous observations should be made. As a 
result of this address, Bismarck appointed a commission 
of leading men of science to consider Weyprecht's pro- 
posal, and this commission came to the conclusion that 
the work would be of the greatest value, and that the 
united action of several nations was essential to its 
success. Out of these beginnings gradually grew the 
International Circumpolar Conference of 1879. Its 



224 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

first meeting, which was held at Hamburg, was prin- 
cipally devoted to the discussion of business, and 
eleven nations promised their support. The second 
conference, which met at Berne in August 1880, de- 
cided definitely on the plan of action to be employed, 
and adopted a scheme of observations, obligatory and 
optional, for use at the fifteen stations which it was 
proposed to establish. 

Of the fifteen stations ultimately established, Den- 
mark, Germany, Russia and the United States occupied 
two each, while Austria- Hungary, Finland, France, 
Great Britain, Holland, Norway and Sweden estab- 
lished one each. In addition, thirty-four permanent 
observatories promised their co-operation, with the 
result that during several succeeding years important 
observations were being simultaneously conducted by 
competent men of science at forty -nine different 
stations, all of them either actually in or in the im- 
mediate neighbourhood of the Polar regions. 

With the work of most of these expeditions we need 
not concern ourselves at all. It was of a purely scien- 
tific nature, and the curious may find it all set forth 
in the thirty-one quarto volumes of the International 
Polar Scientific Publications, a set which contains by 
far the greatest collection of scientific Arctic data 
extant. The only party of the fifteen which we need 
follow, indeed, is that which America sent out, under 
the command of Lieutenant A. W. Greely, to establish 
a station in Lady Franklin Bay, on the east coast of 
Grinnell Land, in the district visited by Nares in 
1875. 

The plan of the expedition, briefly put, was as 



THE GREELY TRAGEDY 225 

follows : Greely, who was a lieutenant in the Signalling 
Department of the United States Army, was to sail on 
the Proteus, a sealer of 467 tons, with a party of 
twenty-five, in the spring of 1881. The Proteus was 
to make direct for Lady Franklin Bay, where he was 
to land the expedition and then return home. It was 
arranged that a vessel should visit the station with 
supplies in 1882 and again in 1883. In the event of 
her being prevented from reaching the headquarters of 
the party, she was to cache quantities of supplies on the 
east coast of Grinnell Land, and to establish a depot 
on Littleton Island. If no vessel succeeded in reach- 
ing Lady Franklin Bay in 1882, the ship sent out in 
1883 was to remain in Smith Sound so long as the 
conditions permitted, and, before leaving, was to land 
a party with everything necessary for a winter's stay 
on Littleton Island. It was hoped that thus the safety 
of Greely and his men would be assured. 

Unfortunately, it seems that the cabinet minister 
who was responsible for the equipment of the party 
was not too well disposed towards it. The funds 
placed at its disposal were quite inadequate, with the 
result that Greely was obliged to exercise the most 
rigid economy in purchasing his stores, while, owing to 
a number of vexatious and quite unnecessary delays in 
the delivery of papers and so forth, he had to rush 
through his final preparations in an inconveniently 
short space of time. Eventually, however, the equip- 
ment was completed on an adequate, but by no means 
liberal scale, and the Proteus set sail from St John's, 
Newfoundland, on July 7, 1881. It was not until she 
reached Hall Basin, and when she was actually in sight 



226 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

of her destination, that she was first delayed by ice. 
Fortunately, however, she was equipped with steam, so 
that she soon charged her way through the barrier and 
landed the members of the expedition in Discovery 
Harbour, the place finally selected for their head- 
quarters. 

Here they found themselves in a delightful spot. 
Dryas, saxefrage, sedges, grasses and buttercups 
clothed the hill slopes and river banks, and there was 
animal life in abundance. No sooner were they ashore 
than the men set about building their quarters, a work 
which they executed with such dispatch that in a 
fortnight they had made themselves an exceedingly 
comfortable house, which they named Fort Conger. 
Unfortunately, even at this early stage of the pro- 
ceedings, the party does not seem to have been on 
harmonious terms, and it appears that Greely, able 
officer though he was, had an unfortunate way of 
alienating the sympathy of his followers. The first 
signs of this friction appeared when, eight days after 
the landing, the Proteus sailed for home, and took 
with her one or two volunteers who had intended to 
take part in the work of the expedition but found it 
impossible to stay. When she was on the point of 
starting again, Lieutenant Kislingbury, one of the 
regular officers of the expedition, expressed himself 
dissatisfied with the manner in which affairs were being 
conducted and asked permission to return. This was 
granted him, but he missed the ship and was obliged 
to return to the station. From that time onward 
Greely hardly spoke to him, and though he did 
splendid work as a huntsman for the party and 






THE GREELY TRAGEDY 227 

showed himself anxious to forward its interests in 
every possible way, he was never asked to resume 
his official connection with it. 

The earlier days of their stay at Fort Conger 
were spent in making short sledge expeditions and in 
laying down depots of provisions at Cape Beechey 
and Cape Murchison. Under the direction of the 
astronomer Israel, too, scientific investigations were 
pursued with the utmost zeal, and many exceedingly 
valuable results were obtained. As soon as spring 
came round again sledging expeditions were sent out 
in all directions, and some members of the party had 
rather curious experiences. For example, Pavy, the 
doctor of the mission, and a small party, went off on 
a voyage of discovery in the direction of the winter 
quarters of the Alert y which they reached in safety. 
Eight days later, however, they were unwise enough 
to take refuge from a storm on an iceberg. To their 
horror and alarm, the gale separated their berg from 
the main pack and sent it sailing towards the north. 
They had reached lat. 82 56' N., and were beginning 
to wonder whether they would ever return again when, 
by good luck, their raft drifted towards the shore 
which they succeeded in reaching, but only with great 
difficulty. 

While Pavy and his companions were indulging in 
their perilous voyage, Lieutenant J. B. Lockwood, one 
of the most indefatigable members of the mission, was 
making an extraordinary journey up the west coast of 
Greenland. He left Fort Conger on April 3 with 
orders to explore the coast near Cape Britannia and 
thence to press on in any direction which he thought 



228 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

fit. The ice was rough, the gales were violent, and the 
cold was intense, the thermometer sometimes sinking 
as low as 8i° below freezing point. In spite of these 
difficulties, however, he pushed rapidly on, and on 
April 27 he reached Cape Bryant. Thence he sent 
back all of his men except two, Sergeant Brainard and 
Christiansen, and with these companions he made his 
way forward with renewed ardour. In the course of 
his journey he crossed Sherard Osborn Fiord, passed 
the highest point reached by Beaumont in 1876, 
doubled Cape May, climbed Cape Britannia, and, on 
May 13, reached Lockwood Island, the highest point 
attained by any Arctic explorer up to that time 
(83 24' N. 42 45' W.). Some miles to the north he 
saw Cape Washington, the most northern known land, 
but he was unable to determine whether or not there 
was land beyond it. Lockwood and his companions 
then set out on the return journey, reaching Fort 
Conger without misadventure on June 1. 

The summer was very warm indeed. The snow 
melted and uncovered traces of Eskimo habitations, 
while some of the party actually saw butterflies and 
bumblebees. But of the ship which they were ex- 
pecting there was not a trace. As, however, they were 
amply provisioned for another winter there was no 
cause for immediate alarm. 

In the spring of 1883 Lockwood attempted to repeat 
his exploit of the previous year, but the conditions 
were against him, and he had to return without ful- 
filling his object. He immediately set out to assist 
Greely in his exploration of the interior of Grinnell 
Land, a work which had been begun during the pre- 



THE GREELY TRAGEDY 229 

vious summer. The results of their efforts showed that 
that country is a positive Paradise compared with most 
Arctic lands. It is intersected by rivers and long fertile 
valleys in which browsed herds of musk-oxen, while 
an enormous glacial lake, some five hundred square 
miles in area and fed by glaciers, which they named 
Lake Hazen, was one of its most remarkable features. 

August brought with it no sign of the expected ship, 
and Greely now saw that he must set about his home- 
ward journey in his boats without delay. Accordingly, 
on August 9, he and his companions started away from 
Fort Conger in their steam launch, two boats and a 
dingy, taking with them every scrap of food that they 
could stow away into the small accommodation at their 
command. The voyage was difficult and dangerous, 
for the heavy spring tides, rising twenty-five feet and 
more, combined with violent gales, kept the ice pack in 
constant motion against the precipitous and rock-bound 
coast. What with the delays caused by the weather 
and the constant stoppages which they were obliged to 
make in order to pick up every cache, however small, 
that had been laid down during the years of their stay 
at Discovery Harbour, it took them sixteen days to 
cover the two hundred miles which lay between their 
starting-place and Cape Hawks. Worse, however, 
was to come, for off Bache Island the boats were 
frozen into the ice so securely that they had no choice 
but to abandon them, and so adverse were the con- 
ditions that nineteen days were spent in struggling to 
the shore which was only thirteen miles distant when 
they started for it. 

At last, however, they succeeded in effecting a land- 



2 3 o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

ing between Cape Sabine and Cape Isabella, but they 
were now really in little better case than before. They 
were all in good health, it is true, and they had saved 
their instruments and the valuable records of their 
doings, but they were desperately short of provisions, 
and the shore on which they found themselves was 
inhospitable in the last degree. However, there was 
nothing for it but to make the best of a bad business. 
Accordingly, some set about hunting, some started 
the erection of winter quarters, while others went out 
in search of cairns and records. It was on Cape Sabine 
that one of these parties found a record which told 
them why the Eroteus had not put in an appearance 
at Lady Franklin Sound. While on her way thither 
in July 1883, the record said, she had been crushed by 
the ice north of the Cape, and rendered absolutely 
useless for further service. She had, however, left a 
store of provisions there, and her commander, Lieutenant 
E. A. Garlington, left a message there to say that he 
would attempt to join the U.S.S. Yantic with all 
possible rapidity with a view to obtaining immediate 
succour for the distressed party. Unfortunately for 
them, the Yantic^ which was under orders to repair 
to Littleton Island, was only a fair-weather vessel, and 
could render them no assistance whatever. 

Greely repaired immediately to Cape Sabine, and 
erected winter quarters on Bedford Pirn Island. The 
cache spoken of by Garlington was there, it is true, but 
it was miserably inadequate, and the party found them- 
selves face to face with the terrible necessity of passing 
a long Arctic winter poorly housed, inadequately clad, 
and with only forty days' rations. From that time 



THE GREELY TRAGEDY 231 

Greely's diary is one long tale of horror. Hunger, 
starvation and scurvy played fearful havoc among the 
men, and their condition soon became deplorable. Up 
till the beginning of April the expedition had only lost 
one of its members, but the 5th of that month saw the 
beginning of the end, and from that day onwards 
deaths were terribly frequent. Lockwood, Kislingbury, 
Israel, the astronomer, and Dr Pavy all sickened and 
died within a few weeks of one another ; Rice, the 
photographer, perished while attempting to take up a 
cache ; Jens died while out hunting ; while Henry, who 
acted as cook, had to be executed for stealing from the 
small store of provisions left to the famine-stricken 
men. 

At last, on June 22, 1884, Greely was astonished to 
hear the sound of a steamer's whistle. He was too weak 
to leave the hut himself, but one of the few survivors of 
his party brought in news of the arrival of two relief 
ships, the Thetis and the Bear, under the command of 
Captain W. S. Schley and Commander H. H. Emory. 
No time Avas lost in taking Greely and his men on 
board, and they were conveyed back to America forth- 
with, one more death taking place on the voyage. 

We now come to a part of the story which is omitted 
from most histories of this expedition, but which ought 
to be given in full, terrible though it unquestionably is. 
We have already mentioned that the Secretary for 
War of that day, Mr Robert T. Lincoln, was not too 
well disposed towards the expedition from the start, 
and that he put many difficulties in its way before it 
left American shores. Incredible though it may seem, 
it was in the same spirit that the authorities approached 



232 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the relief expeditions, and there can be no question 
whatever that most, if not all, of Greely's men could 
have been saved if the original plans had been properly 
carried out. 

As we have already seen, in the summer of 1883 the 
Proteus started off, accompanied by the Yantic, under 
Captain Wilde, with orders either to bring Greely home 
or to establish an ample depot of provisions on 
Littleton Island. The command of the Proteus was 
entrusted to Captain Pike, while Lieutenant Garlington, 
who had volunteered for the service, was placed at the 
head of the entire expedition. The initial mistake was 
made when the Yantic was allowed to sail with her 
boilers in a very poor state of repair, necessitating an 
early visit to a Greenland port. Consequently, she was 
unable to accompany the Proteus far north, as was 
originally designed. Wilde, however, was given orders 
to join Garlington at Littleton Island with as little 
delay as possible. 

Near the entrance to Smith Sound the Proteus was 
stopped by ice. Garlington, however, while prospect- 
ing from a hill not far from Payer Harbour, saw a 
lead of open water through what had hitherto been 
solid ice, and, returning to the ship, he ordered Pike to 
proceed up it. Pike, who had had great experience of ice, 
said that he did not like the look of it and would pre- 
fer to wait a few days, as the season was still very 
early. Garlington, however, insisted, and Pike had, of 
course, no choice but to obey his orders. The result 
was that the Proteus was caught in the ice and sank. 
Before the ship went down, some 3000 rations or more 
were landed on the floe, but, a portion of the ice de- 



THE GREELY TRAGEDY 233 

taching itself, seven or eight hundred were allowed to 
drift away, together with a number of dogs, Garlington 
refusing to make an effort to save them. Of the 2000 
rations or more taken eventually to Cape Sabine, 
Garlington only left 500 for Greely, loading the boats 
with the remainder and reserving them for his own use. 

He then proceeded to Littleton Island. Here there 
was no lack of game, and, as he had plenty of ammuni- 
tion, he could easily have formed a splendid depot 
of provisions for the explorers whom he must have 
known would be in dire straits during the winter. 
He knew this, and he knew that the Yantic was 
bound by his orders to join him at Littleton Island, 
yet nothing would suit him but to start off at once in 
his boats to meet her. Lieutenant Colwell offered to 
go off for this purpose in the whaler while Garlington 
laid in a store of provisions ; the offer was rejected. 
Pike urged him to wait for a few days as there could be 
no doubt that the Yantic would cross Melville Bay in 
safety; the advice was rejected. Events showed that 
Pike was right, for the Yantic reached Littleton Island 
three days after Garlington and his men had left it, 
having, of course, missed them on the way. Wilde now 
had no choice but to put about and look for the crew of 
the Proteus, and he eventually succeeded in finding 
them on the coast of Greenland. 

Now comes the most astonishing part of the whole 
story. No sooner was Garlington on board than he 
gave Wilde orders to sail straight for home, although 
the navigable season was not yet half over, and al- 
though he had left behind a message for Greely re- 
porting the loss of the Proteus, stating that he was 



234 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

rejoining the Yantic, and adding that " everything in 
the power of man " should be done to rescue him. 

The Yantic made a good passage home, and even 
then it would have been easy to equip and send out 
a special vessel to Cape Sabine, for whaling captains 
were all agreed that a boat leaving New York as late 
as September 19 could reach Cape Sabine in safety. 
General Hazen, the chief signalling-officer, entreated 
Lincoln to purchase and dispatch a vessel at once ; 
nothing was done. Lieutenant Melville, of whom we 
shall have cause to say more in connection with the 
Jeannette expedition, offered to take a party there him- 
self; his offer was not accepted, and shortly afterwards 
Lincoln expressed his conviction that it was now too 
late. As events proved, Melville Bay was navigable 
that year for forty-five days after that " too late " was 
uttered, and many of Greely's companions paid for the 
mistake with their lives. 

This story is one of the very few dark spots on the 
history of Arctic exploration. No one, of course, would 
dream of accusing either Lieutenant Garlington or the 
Secretary for War of wilfully sacrificing the lives of their 
fellow men, but it is extraordinary that, while they 
knew that there was the barest likelihood of Greely 
and his men starving to death on a barren and inhospit- 
able shore where there was no chance of their obtaining 
food, they should have neglected to use their utmost 
effort to save them. 



CHAPTER XXV 

NORDENSKIOLD AND HIS WORK 

OF all the men who have added to the world's 
scientific knowledge of the Polar regions there 
is none who has made his name more famous than 
Adolph Erik Nordenskiold. The data that he collected, 
and the discoveries that he made on his many voyages 
to the Arctic world have proved invaluable, and his 
explorations have not merely been rich in scientific 
and geographical results, but they have also benefited 
the mercantile world by opening up new fields for 
enterprise, and proving the practicability of routes 
which had always been regarded as absolutely hopeless. 
Nordenskiold was born at Helsingfors, the capital of 
Finland, on Nov. 18, 1832. His father was a well- 
known naturalist, and the head of the mining depart- 
ment of Finland, and it was to his early training that 
the son owed his first instruction in that particular 
branch of science of which he was destined to become 
one of the leading lights. Honours crowded thickly 
upon him,_,and he was already becoming one of the 
most noted mineralogists in Sweden when, at the age 
of twenty-six, he joined Professor Torrell's expedition 
to Spitzbergen. Neither with this expedition nor with 
that of 1 861, in which he served under the same leader, 
need we concern ourselves. In 1864, however, that is 

23s 



236 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

to say, in the year after Spitzbergen had been circum- 
navigated for the first time by the Norwegian Carlsen, 
the illness of Professor Chydenius, who was to have 
acted as leader of the Swedish expedition of that year, 
left the command of the expedition open. It was 
offered to Nordenskiold, who, of course, accepted it. 
This party was sent out with a view not only to pursuing 
scientific researches in Spitzbergen, but also to explor- 
ing the unknown regions to the north of that island. 
The first part of his task Nordenskiold fulfilled admir- 
ably, among other things rediscovering Wiche Land, 
which had not been sighted since Thomas Edge chanced 
upon it in 1617 ; he was only prevented from fulfilling 
the second by the fact that he fell in with seven boat- 
loads of shipwrecked walrus hunters to whom, of course, 
he had to give succour. This placed so severe a strain 
upon his commissariat department that he was obliged 
to desist from his original intention. 

To Nordenskiold's deep regret, the Swedish Govern- 
ment now came to the conclusion that it had done 
enough in the way of Arctic research for the present. 
The explorer, however, had acquired a taste for Arctic 
travel, and he was by no means inclined to give in 
without a murmur. Accordingly, he approached Count 
Ehrensvard, the Governor of Gothenburg, upon the 
subject, and through his kind offices a fund was raised 
by such mercantile princes as Dickson, Ekman and 
Carnegie, with the result that, in 1868, he was able to 
depart upon an expedition during the course of which 
he succeeded in attaining to a higher point than ever 
explorer in the old world had reached in a ship. 

On his return Oscar Dickson, who proved a veritable 



NORDENSKIOLD AND HIS WORK 237 

Maecenas to Nordenskiold, asked him if he would not 
like to continue his researches in that direction, and it 
need hardly be said that his protege jumped at the 
offer. The new expedition was to be on a far larger 
scale than any of its predecessors, for Nordenskiold was 
to winter on the north coast of Spitzbergen and was to 
push on thence over the ice as far as the conditions 
permitted. One of the first questions to be considered 
was that of draught animals, and, with a view to deciding 
the rival merits of dogs and reindeer, Nordenskiold 
repaired to Greenland to get up the case for the dogs, 
while Dickson conducted inquiries into the ways of the 
deer. It was during this visit to Greenland that Nor- 
denskiold made his first raid upon the inland ice, of 
which details are given elsewhere. The result of these 
inquiries was a verdict in favour of the deer, the reasons 
being that they were the more easily fed and that they 
could be killed and eaten if the expedition chanced to 
run short of provisions. 

No pains were spared to make the equipment as 
complete as possible, and, accompanied by two pro- 
vision ships, the G laden and the Onkle Adam, the party 
sallied forth on their adventures with high hopes of 
accomplishing great things. The fates, however, were 
against them, and a heavy misfortune befell them soon 
after their arrival at their winter quarters in Mussel 
Bay. The original plan had been that the convoy ships 
should unload and should then return home, but, on 
September 16, a terrific storm arose, as a result of 
which the ships found themselves so firmly beset in the 
ice that there was no prospect of escape that year. 
Furthermore, the reindeer took advantage of the storm 



238 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

to effect their escape, and only one of them was ever 
found again. This was especially unfortunate, as Nor- 
denskiold had been depending upon them not merely 
for the prosecution of his plans, but also for that supply 
of fresh meat which would be so necessary if scurvy 
were to break out. 

As there were now 67 mouths to feed instead of 
24, the only course for the commander to pursue was 
to cut down the daily rations by one-third, and this he 
accordingly proceeded to do. The men took the mis- 
fortune in a spirit of praiseworthy resignation, but 
their fortitude was strongly tried a few days later when 
the news was sprung upon them that six walrus-vessels 
had been frozen in at Point Grey and Cape Welcome, 
that their crews numbered 58, and that, with care 
and economy, their provisions might be made to last 
till December 1, after which they would have to ask 
Nordenskiold to help them. It need hardly be said 
that the explorer was not overjoyed at the prospect, 
more especially as with so many to feed and so little to 
eat it was morally certain that they would all starve to 
death before the end of the winter. Fortunately, how- 
ever, he knew that a Swedish settlement at Cape 
Thorsden, some 200 miles away, had been abandoned 
that year, and that a good store of provisions had been 
left behind. He accordingly bargained with the hunters 
that some of their party should repair thither, and that 
he would support the rest to the best of his ability 
when their own stock of provisions had run out. With 
a view to economising his own so far as possible he 
tried the experiment of converting his now useless rein- 
deer moss into bread. The recipe is not one to be com- 



NORDENSKIOLD AND HIS WORK 239 

mended to the notice of epicures in search of a novelty, 
but it was found to be just eatable. This precaution, 
however, fortunately proved unnecessary, for two of the 
walrus-ships were released in a gale, and the hunters 
made their escape. Those of them who went to Cape 
Thorsden showed such a complete disregard for the 
laws of hygiene that they all died during the winter. 

As was only inevitable in the circumstances, out- 
breaks of scurvy were frequent, but they proved 
amenable to treatment. The huntsmen of the party 
were lucky enough to shoot seven reindeer, which 
formed a welcome addition to the poorly filled larder. 
"These," says Leslie, "were reins in winter dress. 
The whole body was covered with a very close winter 
coat of hair several inches thick. The head, nearly 
indistinguishable from the neck, was short and thick, 
with broad nose and eyes visible on careful scrutiny. 
The trunk appeared shapeless, and the legs short and 
clumsy. This peculiarly shapeless appearance is owing 
not merely to the coat of long hair, but also to the 
thick layer of fat with which at this season the whole 
mass of muscle therein is surrounded. It is, indeed, 
surprising how this animal can collect such a mass of 
fat in Spitzbergen, where the vegetation is so scanty 
and the summer so short. In spring, even in the end 
of June, they are only, as people say, skin and bone ; 
but in autumn, by the end of August, and throughout 
September, they resemble fat cattle, and have their 
flesh so surrounded and impregnated with fat that it is 
for many nearly uneatable." 

As soon as spring came round Nordenskiold set out 
upon his northern journey. Any hopes that he might 



240 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

have entertained of being able to push far north were 
soon dashed to the ground, for at Seven Islands he 
found the ice so bad that it was useless for him to 
attempt to cross it. He decided, therefore, to proceed 
with what was really the more valuable work of 
examining North-East Land, with a view to deter- 
mining its geological structure and to settling its 
eastern limit, which had always been a vexed question. 
Round the shore the ice was rough and hummocky, 
and going was slow in consequence. On June I the 
explorers were obliged to take to the inland ice, the 
sea front of which, it may be said, presents the largest 
known glacier. Here their way became perilous as 
well as merely difficult. " Scarcely had we advanced 
2000 feet," says Nordenskiold, "before one of our men 
disappeared at a place where the ice was quite level, 
and so instantaneously that he could not even give a 
cry for help. When we, affrighted, looked into the hole 
made where he disappeared, we found him hanging on 
the drag-line, to which he was fastened with reindeer 
harness, over a deep abyss. He was hoisted out un- 
hurt." Accidents like these were of frequent occurrence, 
while the monotony of the journey was also varied 
by a long series of canals 30 to 100 feet wide, with 
vertical walls sometimes 40 feet high. These canals 
were often crossed by snow bridges which had a way 
of collapsing under the travellers' feet, but none of the 
men came to any serious harm. 

Nordenskiold's original plan of making for Cape 
Mohn was put out of the question by an impassable 
terrain, and he accordingly descended into Hinlopen 
Strait at Wahlenberg Bay and thence returned to his 



NORDENSKIOLD AND HIS WORK 241 

headquarters. There the party had the good fortune 
to be found by the English yachtsman, Leigh Smith, 
who relieved them of all fears for the future. 

Valuable though Nordenskiold's earlier voyages 
were, it is, perhaps, as the discoverer of the North-East 
passage that his name will be best remembered. For 
centuries the idea of finding a way to China along the 
coast of Asia had been allowed to lapse, largely, of 
course, because other and easier routes were open to all 
those who cared to use them. In 1875, however, the 
subject was revived, and Oscar Dickson expressed him- 
self willing to fit out an expedition which should be 
commanded by Nordenskiold. It was thought advis- 
able to send out a small preliminary expedition to 
spy out the way, and accordingly in the same year 
Nordenskiold started off in the Proven, a small ship of 
70 tons, and succeeded in reaching the mouth of the 
Yenesei, a feat never before accomplished. The value 
of his journey was, however, rather discounted in some 
quarters, and many authorities held that his success 
was largely due to the fact that the ice was unusually 
favourable in that year, and that he would be unable 
to repeat the performance in any ordinary season. 
With a view to silencing these critics, Nordenskiold 
sailed from Tromso in the Ymer on July 25, 1876, and 
anchored off the mouth of the Yenesei on August 15, 
thus proving the Arctic route to be perfectly practic- 
able, and opening up a way which has since proved of 
some value. 

These two successes made Nordenskiold all the more 
determined to make the complete voyage from Tromso 
to the Behring Strait ; and so convincingly did he 
Q 



242 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

argue his case, that he succeeded in obtaining a grant 
from the Swedish Diet, which, with contributions from 
Oscar Dickson, King Oscar, and M. Sibiriakoff, enabled 
him to fit out the Vega, and to set sail in her from 
Tromso on July 21, 1878, accompanied by the collier 
Express, the Frazier, with a cargo for the Yenesei, and 
the Lena, which was to make for Yakutsk. 

The Kara Strait was perfectly free of ice, and here 
the Vega took the coal from the Express into her own 
bunkers. The dreaded Kara Sea was also safely 
negotiated, and on August 10 the two ships of which 
the expedition now consisted were lying off the mouth 
of the Yenesei. From this point onward Nordenskiold 
was in a state of nervous tension, for he might at any 
moment be pulled up by the ice. Cape Chelyuskin, 
however, the most northerly point of Asia, was rounded 
successfully, the New Siberian Islands were passed, and 
on September 12 the Vega was nearing the promontory 
of Irkaipi, on the other side of which lay the Behring 
Strait, the Lena having left her at the river after which 
she was named. 

Nordenskiold was now within 120 miles of his destina- 
tion, and his ambition to complete the passage in a single 
voyage seemed on the verge of fulfilment, when his 
ship was caught in the ice, and so firmly frozen in that 
all hopes of getting her free again that winter had to 
be abandoned. The Vega was lying off a Chukche 
village, and Nordenskiold and his assistants at once set 
about gaining some knowledge of the manners and 
customs of the natives. One of them, he tells us, "carried 
a Greek cross on his neck. He appeared to have been 
baptised, but his Christianity did not amount to much. 






NORDENSKIOLD AND HIS WORK 243 

He crossed himself with much zeal to the sun in our 
presence. This was the only trace of religion or religious 
observance that we could discover." During his inter- 
course with the natives, Norquist succeeded in learn- 
ing about a thousand words of their languages, while 
other members of the party made many valuable 
ethnographical observations. 

On July 18, 1879, the Vega was set free, and on 
the 20th she rounded the East Cape, thus being 
the first ship to accomplish the difficult passage in 
a single journey. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

THE STORY OF THE "JEANNETTE" 

THERE is a double interest attached to the voyage 
of the Jeannette, for not only is the story itself one 
of the most terrible tragedies in the whole history of 
Arctic exploration, but, as will be seen later, it was the 
fate of the unlucky ship which prompted Nansen to 
formulate his plan for reaching the Pole by forcing his 
ship into the ice, and allowing her to drift north with 
the current. 

The Jeannette expedition owed its inception to Mr J. 
G. Bennett of the New York Herald, who had frequently 
shown his interest in Arctic research by equipping and 
sending out vessels at his own expense. He pur- 
chased the Pandora from Sir Allen Young, renamed 
her the Jeannette, and placed her under the command 
of Commander De Long, who had been a member of 
the relief expedition sent out to the succour of the 
Polaris. Admirably fitted out in every detail both for 
navigation and for scientific research, the Jeannette set 
sail from San Francisco on July 8, 1879. After a brief 
call at St Michael's, where she took on board sledges, 
furs, dogs, and two Alaskan dog-drivers, she set sail once 
more and made for Behring Strait. 

The plan of the expedition was to spend the winter 
at Wrangel Land, and then to push on northward, if 



STORY OF THE JEANNETTE" 245 

possible to the Pole. Unfortunately for De Long's 
arrangements, however, the Wrangel Land of the 
geographers of the day had no real existence, and 
he was destined never to reach it. For over a century 
it had been held, on the strength of Chuckche reports, 
that a vast continent existed to the north of Asia, 
which extended right across the Pole to Greenland. 
No less an authority than the great Petermann himself 
believed in it, and the reports of the American whaler, 
Thomas Long, who discovered Wrangel Land in 
1867, and of other whalers who followed him, 
tended to confirm this theory, for the newly dis- 
covered land seemed to be of considerable extent. 
Accordingly, De Long had every reason to suppose 
that here he would find comfortable quarters for the 
winter. 

He was very soon to be disillusioned, however, for 
before he was within a hundred miles of the land, the 
Jeannette was caught in the ice, and from that time 
onward her story bore a painful resemblance to that 
of the Tegetthoff, without any of its compensations. 
Drifted constantly westward by the ever-moving pack, 
now nipped till her seams almost sprang apart, now 
threatened with a terrible destruction by the frozen 
waves of ice which rolled down upon her, she was 
before long reduced to a most pitiable plight. Here 
is the description penned by her chief engineer, G. W. 
Melville, of an event which was of almost daily 
occurrence : — 

" It was observed that, during the continuance of the 
wind, the whole body of ice moved evenly before it ; 
but, when it subsided, the mass that had been put in 



246 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

motion crowded and tumbled upon the far-off floes at 
rest, piling tumultuously upward in a manner terrific 
to behold. It was in one of these oppressive intervals 
succeeding a gale, when the roar and crash of the distant 
masses could be distinctly heard, that the floe in which | 
the Jeannette was embedded began splitting in all 
directions. The placid and almost level surface of ice 
suddenly heaved and swelled into great hills, buzzing 
and wheezing dolefully. Giant blocks pitched and 
rolled as though controlled by invisible hands ; and 
the vast compressing bodies shrieked a shrill and 
horrible song that curdled the blood. On came the ] 
frozen waves, nearer and nearer. Seams ran and 
rattled across them with a thundering boom, while, I 
silent and awestruck, we watched their terrible progress. 
Sunk in an amphitheatre about five-eighths of a mile in 
diameter lay the ship, the bank of moving ice puffed 
in places to a height of 50 feet, gradually enclosing 
her on all sides. Preparations were made for her 
abandonment ; but — what then ? If the mighty circle 
continued to decrease, escape was hopeless, death 
inevitable. To think of clambering up the slippery 
sides of the rolling mass would be equal folly with 
an attempt to scale the falling waters of Niagara." 

Summer came on the heels of winter, but it brought 
no prospect of release to the wretched crew of the 
Jeannette. They had already drifted past the northern 
coast of Wrangel Land, and had found it to be nothing 
but an island of moderate dimensions, and there were 
no signs of that mythical continent upon which De 
Long had been pinning his hopes. The new year 
found them still held in the relentless grip of the 



STORY OF THE JEANNETTE" 247 

pack. Here is the comment upon his situation which 
De Long penned in his diary : — 

"People beset in the pack before always drifted 
somewhere to some land ; but we are drifting about 
like a modern Flying Dutchman, never getting any- 
where, but always restless and on the move. Coals 
are burning up, food is being consumed, the pumps 
are still going, and thirty-three people are wearing 
out their lives and souls like men doomed to im- 
prisonment for life. If this next summer comes 
and goes like the last without any result, what 
reasonable mind can be patient in contemplation of 
the future ? " 

On May 16 a slight diversion was caused by the 
discovery of two islands, which they named Jeannette 
Island and Henriette Island. De Long started off on 
a sledging expedition to them, and, like many other 
Arctic explorers, had great trouble with his dogs, 
which, in accordance with the traditions of their race, 
refused to face the open water, and had to be dragged, 
sledges and all, through every lead that intersected 
their path. "There is no greater violence done the 
eternal cause of truth," says the commander, " than in 
those pictures where the Eskimos are represented as 
calmly sitting in shoe-shaped sledges with the lashes 
of their long whips trailing gracefully behind, while 
the dogs dash in full cry and perfect unison across 
smooth expanses of snow. If depicted ' true to nature,' 
the scene changes its aspect considerably ; it is quite 
as full of action, but not of progress. A pandemonium 
of horrors — dogs yelling, barking, snapping, and 
fighting ; the leaders in the rear and the wheelers in 



248 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

the middle, all tied in a knot, and as hopelessly 
tangled up as a basketful of eels." 

On Sunday June 12 the pressure became so tre- 
mendous that the ship cracked in every part. She at 
once began to fill, and the men set to work to remove 
on to the ice everything necessary for a sledge journey 
to a place of safety. Towards four o'clock on the 
following morning the man on watch suddenly burst 
into the tent. " Turn out if you want to see the 
last of the Jeannette? he cried. " There she goes ! 
There she goes ! " " Most of us," writes Melville, 
"had barely time to arise and look out, when, amid 
the rattling and banging of her timbers and iron work, 
the ship righted and stood almost upright ; the floes 
that had come in and crushed her slowly backed off ; 
and as she sank with slightly accelerated velocity, the 
yardarms were stripped and broken upward parallel to 
the masts ; and so, like a great gaunt skeleton, its 
hands clasped above its head, she plunged out of sight." 

On that day they started off with their nine sledges 
and five boats on their journey of 150 miles to the 
New Siberian Islands. They carried sixty days' pro- 
visions with them, and had not the men been in an 
enfeebled condition, and had not circumstances been 
against them, they could easily have accomplished the 
distance. As it was, they were too weak to drag all 
their sledges and boats in a single load, so that every 
mile of the journey had to be covered seven times, 
while an unfortunate northerly drift carried them miles 
out of their course. At last, however, the New Siberian 
Islands were reached, and, after a short rest, the crew 
started off in their boats, with only seven days' provi- 




2 i 

3 < 
p u 



STORY OF THE "JE ANNETTE" 249 

sions, for the Lena Delta. The first cutter was com- 
manded by De Long, the second cutter by Lieutenant 
Chipps, and the whaleboat by Melville. A storm 
separated the three boats soon after they had started, 
and of Chipps and his men nothing more was ever 
heard. De Long landed on September 16, 1881, 
near the mouth of the Lena, and he and his com- 
panions started off on a long march of ninety-five 
miles for the nearest settlement. They had provisions 
for seven days, and their chances of reaching their 
destination seemed good. Circumstances, however, 
were once more against them, for they found their way 
crossed by unfordable tributaries, and, as they had 
been obliged to abandon their boat, there was nothing 
for them to do but to wait until ice should bridge over 
the streams. 

On October 6 the first death occurred, and on the 
following day the miserable party ate their last pro- 
visions. To press forward was impossible for most of 
them, so weak and ill had they become, while to stay 
where they were meant certain death. De Long and 
Ambler, the doctor of the party, however, determined 
to send on two men to find assistance, while they 
themselves heroically remained behind to take care of 
their dying comrades. The rest of their story cannot 
be better told than by quoting extracts from the 
commander's diary : — 

" Missed Lee. Went down a hole in the bank and 
camped. Sent back for Lee. He had turned back, 
lain down, and was ready to die. All united in saying 
Lord's Prayer and Creed after supper. Horrible 
night." 



250 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

"October 17, Monday — one hundred and twenty- 
seventh day. Alexey dying. Doctor baptised him. 
Read prayers for sick. Mr Collins' birthday — forty 
years old. About sunset Alexey died. Exhaustion 
from starvation." 

"October 22, Saturday — one hundred and thirty- 
second day. Too weak to carry bodies of Lee and 
Kaack out on the ice. The doctor, Collins, and I 
carried them round the corner, out of sight. Then my 
eye closed up." 

"October 30, Sunday — one hundred and fortieth 
day. Boyd and Gortz died during the night. Mr 
Collins dying." 

And here the brave commander's diary tragically 
ends. Some months later Melville, who had made 
his way to the coast in a less inhospitable region, 
and had organised a search-party as soon as he heard 
of De Long's plight, came upon the camp. 

" Suddenly," he says, " I caught sight of three 
objects, and one of these was the hand and arm of a 
body raised out of the snow. ... I identified De 
Long at a glance by his coat. He lay on his right side, 
with his right hand under his cheek, his head pointing 
north, and his face turned towards the west. His feet 
were drawn slightly up, as though he were sleeping ; 
his left arm was raised with the elbow bent, and his 
hand, thus horizontally lifted, was bare. About four 
feet back of him, or towards the east, I found his small 
notebook, or ice-journal, where he had tossed it with 
his left hand, which looked as though it had never 
recovered from the act, but had frozen as I found it, 
upraised." 



STORY OF THE JEANNETTE" 251 

During his ill-fated cruise, De Long not only made 
a number of valuable physical observations in an 
unknown region, but he also proved the Siberian Ocean 
to be a shallow basin dotted with islands, and exploded 
the theory of a great continent to the north of Asia. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

LEIGH SMITH AND THE "EIRA" 

NOT a little of our knowledge of Spitzbergen and 
Franz Josef Land is due to the exertions of 
that able yachtsman and hunter, Leigh Smith, of whom 
mention has already been made in connection with his 
rescue of the unfortunate Swedes at Mussel Bay. 
Leigh Smith first comes into the story of Arctic Ex- 
ploration early in the 'seventies, when in a series of 
three voyages, he examined the coast of Spitzbergen 
and corrected several errors which then obtained 
credence concerning the outline of North-East Land. 
Valuable as were the scientific results of these voyages, 
however, we need not concern ourselves particularly 
with them, and it is not until 1880, when he paid his 
first visit to Franz Josef Land, that we have to enter 
into the story of his doings in any detail. 

Experience had taught him that discoveries could 
always be made in the icy seas by perseverance and by 
promptly seizing any opportunities that might arise, so, 
when he decided to make another expedition north- 
word, he made up his mind to sail for the Spitzbergen 
seas, to conduct a careful examination of the ice over a 
large area, and then to prosecute his researches in the 
direction which seemed most promising. With this 
end in view, he had built for himself a steam yacht of 
360 tons burden and 50 horsepower, which he named 



LEIGH SMITH AND THE " EIRA " 253 

the Eira, and with a company of twenty-nine, he set 
sail for the north in June 1880. 

His first objective was Jan Mayen, but he was 
prevented from examining that interesting island by 
the fact that it was, as usual, enveloped in a thick mist. 
He next turned his attention to the east coast of 
Greenland, which, of course, still offers a splendid field 
to the adventurous explorer, but here again he was foiled, 
for the coast was so encumbered by ice that it was 
impossible for him to approach it. He then shaped 
his course for Spitzbergen, but falling in with the two 
famous whalers, David and John Gray, he learnt that 
the ice was equally bad in that direction. Accordingly, 
he determined to try his luck in the Barents Sea, and to 
discover once and for all whether there was a practicable 
sea-route to Franz Josef Land. Payer and Weyprecht 
had, of course, found their way thither in 1871, but as 
we have seen, they had been drifted there with the ice ; 
a Dutchman named De Bruyne had actually sighted 
its high land in 1879, but he had not succeeded in 
reaching it ; while, in the same year, Captain Markham, 
in his little yacht the Isbjorn, had pushed as far north 
as lat. 78 24', and had come to the conclusion that a 
steamer ought to be able to make its way through the 
loose ice with which the sea was cumbered without very 
much difficulty. There was, therefore, every reason for 
Leigh Smith to hope that he would be able to reach 
those shores which had never been visited since they 
were first discovered. 

Though the sea was covered with ice and dense fogs 
were of frequent occurrence, he succeeded in bringing 
the Eira through in safety, and on August 14 she was 



254 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

lying at anchor off May Island, which is situated just 
to the south of Hooker Island. Continuing her journey, 
she steamed past Barents Hook, round the southern 
shore of Northbrook Island, and up to Bell Island, 
between which and Mabel Island an excellent anchorage 
was found and named Eira Harbour. Making that his 
base, Leigh Smith surveyed the coast-line in all 
directions, adding about no miles to the maps, and 
forming an interesting collection of the flora and fauna 
of the country. Towards the end of August the 
weather became threatening, so he determined to bid 
farewell to Franz Josef Land for that year, as he was 
not prepared to spend a winter there. 

With a view to convincing doubters that the voyage 
to Franz Josef Land would be practicable in any year, 
he set out on his second voyage thither in the following 
summer. The Eira was more hampered by ice than 
had been the case before, but on July 23 land was 
sighted, and Leigh Smith set his course for Cape 
Ludlow. After exploring much of the coast-line which 
he had been unable to reach during his previous visit, 
he made for Bell Island, off which he anchored on 
August 6. 

He had just finished examining Cape Flora and was 
thinking of turning eastwards, in the hope that he 
might pick up some traces of the lost Jeannette, when a 
calamity took place which completely upset all his 
plans. For one fine Sunday morning, when the weather 
was beautifully calm, and there seemed to be nothing 
to fear, the pack-ice suddenly came down with the tide, 
and the Eira was caught between it and the land floe. 
She was protected by a grounded berg, and for a while 



LEIGH SMITH AND THE " EIRA " 255 

no injury was done to her. Then, without any warning, 
the berg gave way, the Eira heeled over, and the water 
came pouring into her hold, probably through a hole 
made by a tongue of ice. The pumps were tried, but 
without much effect, so all hands were set to work, 
passing provisions and anything else that they could 
save out on to the ice. Within two hours she was at 
the bottom, in eleven fathoms of water. 

There was now nothing for the men to do but to 
make the best of a bad business, and to set about pre- 
parations for the winter. Fortunately the land abounds 
with bears and walruses, and thanks to the united 
efforts of the crew and of Bob, their retriever, the larder 
was soon filled with a sufficient store of meat to last 
them comfortably till the spring. Bob seems to have 
been a veritable Nimrod among dogs, and to have 
combined an enthusiasm for hunting with an unusual 
degree of sagacity. On one occasion, while out for a 
constitutional by himself, he came upon a herd of sea- 
horses, and succeeded in conveying the intelligence to 
his human friends, to the great benefit of the larder. 
On another occasion, he decoyed a bear right up to the 
door of the hut, where it was promptly shot, while he 
once nearly died a sportsman's death in the embrace of 
a moribund bear, which, in his zeal, he had approached 
rather too closely. 

All the boats had fortunately been saved, and the 
winter was spent in making preparations for a voyage 
to Nova Zembla, where, it was hoped, succour would 
be found. This hope was amply fulfilled, for, on 
reaching their goal after six weeks of very hard work, 
they fell in with the Dutch exploring steamer, the 



256 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Willem Barents, and later on with the Hope, which had 
been sent out to their relief by the British Government, 
and by which they were conveyed home none the 
worse for their experiences. 

Leigh Smith's voyages were valuable not only 
scientifically but also commercially, for he showed that 
walruses abound in those seas, a piece of knowledge of 
which hunters have availed themselves to the full. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

GREENLAND AND THE EARLIER JOURNEYS OF 
NANSEN AND PEARY 

ON the whole of the earth's surface there is 
probably no more desolate and uninviting 
country than Greenland. Extending for a distance of 
over 1400 miles from north to south, and of some 
900 miles from east to west at its broadest point, 
almost the whole of it is covered with a permanent 
ice-cap, which probably attains in places a depth of 
3000 feet, and on which it is absolutely impossible for 
a human being to sustain life for long. 

Some small portions of the coast are inhabited by 
tribes of Eskimos and by settlers, while here and there 
traces remain of its early Norse discoverers, many of 
them probably Christians, as Holm, in 1880, found 
ruins of four stone churches in the Julianshaab district. 
These settlements are confined to small areas on the 
western coast ; the eastern coast, with the exception of 
a small tract between Cape Bismarck and Cape Fare- 
well, whither a few Eskimos migrated from the Parry 
Islands, is entirely uninhabited. This coast, indeed, 
protected as it is by an almost impassable barrier of 
ice and shrouded by perpetual fog, has never been very 
thoroughly explored, in spite of the persistent efforts of 
generations of daring travellers. During the earlier 



258 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

days of Arctic exploration, Hudson, the Dane Daniell, 
Gale Hamke, Han Egede and his son, Olsen Wallor, 
and other whalers mapped out small sections of the 
coast, but their discoveries did not amount to very 
much. 

In 1822, however, Captain William Scoresby, jun., 
one of the most famous of Scottish whalers, visited the 
coast, and, in the intervals of fishing, succeeded in 
charting and sketching it from Hudson's Cape Hold- 
with-Hope to Gale Hamke Bay, making at the same 
time a number of valuable astronomical and trigono- 
metrical observations. Captain Edward Sabine, while 
engaged on his great pendulum work of 1823, visited 
Pendulum Island with Captain Clavering, who explored 
much of the coast in the neighbourhood, the field which 
he thus opened up being later developed by Koldewey, 
with whose voyage in the Germania we have already 
dealt. Among others who have contributed to our 
still scanty knowledge of this desolate land are Blosse- 
ville, Wandell, Graah, Giesecke, Rink, Dalager, Jensen, 
Steenstrup, Knutsen, Knudsen, Eberlin, Garde, Ryder, 
Drygalski, and Nathorst, thanks to whose efforts much 
of the east coast has been mapped out. 

For centuries even less was known of the great ice- 
cap which forms the interior, and, until recently, it 
remained practically untrodden by the foot of man. 
The Eskimos believed it to be the abode of the Kivi- 
togs, or sorcerers, and would not attempt to penetrate 
it, while few of the explorers who had the hardihood to 
venture upon it succeeded in achieving much. In 1870 
Nordenskiold and Berggren, the naturalist, succeeded 
in penetrating it to a distance of thirty-five miles from 






NANSEN AND PEARY 259 

Aulaitsivik Fiord, and discovered a true ice-plant and 
a dust of cosmic origin, which the geologist named 
kryokonite. Repeating the attempt in 1883, Norden- 
skiold, after fifteen marches, reached 48 15' W., at an 
elevation of 4900 feet. Seeing that it was impossible 
for him to proceed much farther, he sent on two Laps 
on skis, who covered another 140 miles, and reported 
on returning that, though they had reached an elevation 
of 6600 feet, the ice-field still rose steadily. 

The first man to cross Greenland from one coast to 
the other was Dr Fridtjof Nansen, who was later to 
win still further fame for himself by his daring attempt 
to cross the North Pole in the Eram. Nansen was 
born on October 16, 1861, and from his earliest youth 
he displayed the keenest interest in natural science and 
that absolute contempt for danger which proved of such 
immense service to him later on. It was in 1887, while 
curator of the Bergen museum, that he first announced 
his intention of crossing that terrible ice-cap which had 
hitherto defied the efforts of even the hardiest explorers. 
The announcement was greeted with ridicule, but, 
nevertheless, he received over forty applications from 
would-be companions, and the sum of ^300, the 
estimated cost of the expedition, was presented by a 
generous Dane. 

No sooner had it been made possible for him to 
carry out his plans than he set about the preparations 
for the journey. Not only was it necessary for him to 
select his companions and to arrange all the details of 
the route which he proposed to follow and the equip- 
; ment which he meant to take with him, but he also 
thought it advisable to test the various kinds of skis 



2 6o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

and snowshoes on which the trip was to be made, and 
to accustom himself to hardships by sleeping on a snow 
mountain protected from the cold by only a bag. 

His companions were to be five in number, and 
consisted of Otto Sverdrup, a retired ship's captain; 
Lieut. Dietrichson, of the Norwegian army ; Christian 
Christiansen Frana, a peasant from North Norway ; 
and two Laps, named Balto and Ravna. Nansen's 
plan was daring in the extreme, for he proposed to 
land on the east coast of Greenland, and to make his 
way as best as he could to the west. It will be obvious 
that, having once embarked upon the trip, the party 
could not possibly turn back. Ahead of them lay 
civilisation and food ; behind them lay nothing but an 
uninhabited and inhospitable coast, where they would 
be compelled to die of starvation should they return 
to it. By adopting this route, therefore, he burnt his 
boats behind him. 

In May 1888 Nansen and his companions sailed 
from Norway in the sealer which was to take them to 
Greenland. They had made an arrangement with the 
captain that business was to come first, and that he 
was not to go out of his way to land them. Accord- 
ingly it was not until July 17, when the ship happened 
to be within two miles and a half of the shore, that the 
explorers were able to put off in their two boats. As 
we have had occasion to point out more than once, the 
east coast of Greenland is generally encumbered with 
ice, and Nansen found that reaching the shore was by 
no means so easy a matter as he had anticipated. For 
many days they were drifted about with the pack, some- 
times being carried as far as thirty miles out to sea, and 



NANSEN AND PEARY 261 

it was not until July 29 that they were able to effect a 
landing. Even now, however, they were not able to 
start immediately across the ice-cap, for in the course 
of their wanderings they had been carried 200 miles 
to the south, and it was necessary for them to make a 
toilsome journey northward before, on August 10, 
they were able to set their course for the west 
coast. 

They found at once that it was quite impossible for 
them to travel by day, as the snow was so soft that 
very little progress could be made. Even at night the 
conditions were but little better, for their way lay over 
rough and hummocky ice, which was frequently inter- 
sected by chasms, and rain fell in torrents ; con- 
sequently they were only able to cover a few miles on 
each march. As they travelled upward, however, 
towards that high plateau of which Central Greenland 
consists, the cold grew more intense, with the result 
that the ice became firmer, and they were able to travel 
by day. The cold, however, though it brought relief 
to them in one direction, was not without its dis- 
advantages, for they were unable to find any more 
drinking water, and were obliged to content themselves 
with snow, which they melted in flasks carried at their 
breasts. 

The upward journey occupied them about three weeks, 
and it was with the utmost relief that they found 
themselves at last on the plateau, at an elevation of 
about 9000 feet. The ascent had been terribly steep, 
the work of dragging the five sledges had been ex- 
cessively arduous, and so much time had consequently 
been spent, that Nansen determined to change his 



262 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

course, and, instead of pressing on to Christianshaab, 
to make for Godthaab, his nearest point in a south- 
westerly direction. The second half of the journey 
afforded a very pleasant contrast to the first. Aban- 
doning the biggest of the sledges and binding the 
others together in couples, the explorers set sail and 
sent them racing down the slope while they glided 
beside them on their skis. As they neared the coast 
they were obliged to go more cautiously, for they very 
nearly tumbled head over heels down the first of the 
precipices which break up the ice-cap at this point. 

With some difficulty they succeeded in reaching the 
shore, and here the party split up. Nansen, Sverdrup, 
and one of the Laps made a crazy and exceedingly 
uncomfortable boat out of willows, in which they sailed 
to the Eskimo settlement of New Herrnhut. Here 
they were received by a missionary, and a party was 
sent back for the others, who arrived in safety on 
October 16. 

Nansen had intended to return to Norway that 
autumn, but the last ship had sailed, and he was con- 
sequently obliged to spend the winter at Godthaab. 
He ultimately reached home at the end of May, in the 
happy knowledge that he had performed a feat which 
had hitherto been considered impossible, and that he 
had proved the interior of Greenland to be a vast ice- 
field. The journey had cost him far more than he had 
originally anticipated, but the deficit was soon made 
good by private subscription. 

Nansen was not the only man of the time who was 
attempting to solve the riddle of Central Greenland, for 
before he set out on his daring journey, the brilliant 



NANSEN AND PEARY 263 

young American, Lieutenant Peary, had already begun 
that series of raids upon the inland ice which were 
eventually to be attended by very remarkable results. 

Peary is a native of Maine, and he began his career 
as an engineer in the United States navy. He seems, 
however, to have been predestined by nature for the 
life of an Arctic traveller, for, as Sir Clements Markham 
well put it, he combines " forethought and prudence in 
planning his operations with great skill and undaunted 
resolution in carrying them into execution " — qualities 
which more, perhaps, than any others go to make a 
successful explorer. It was in the year 1885 that he 
first turned his attention seriously to that branch of 
work with which his name is now so intimately 
connected. Realising that there was still a vast field 
for research in Central Greenland, he then suggested to 
the academies and learned societies of the United 
States that he should undertake an expedition thither, 
with a view to pursuing scientific investigations in that 
practically unknown country, and to discovering once 
and for all whether or not Greenland was an island. 
The idea was taken up enthusiastically, and sufficient 
funds were soon raised to enable him to carry his plans 
into execution. 

His first trip was more or less tentative, for he was 
at that time totally inexperienced in Arctic travel, and 
it was, of course, necessary for him to find out exactly 
what difficulties he would have to encounter on such 
a journey as that which he proposed to undertake. 
Leaving America in May 1886, he was soon at God- 
haven, where he met his friend Christian Maigaard, a 
prominent official in those parts, who intended to accom- 



264 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 



pany him on his journey. Thence he sailed up the 
Pakitsok Fiord, at the end of which lay his starting- 
point. After carefully reconnoitering the glacier and 
discovering a tongue of ice which seemed reasonably 
accessible, he started off with Maigaard and two 
Eskimos, their equipment consisting of a couple of 
sledges and provisions for about three weeks. Their 
way did not lie in particularly pleasant places, for the 
ice-field was intersected with innumerable crevasses 
which needed a good deal of negotiation. He found, 
however, that travelling was by no means impossible, 
and the party succeeded in penetrating the interior to 
a distance of about a hundred miles before lack of 
provisions compelled them to beat a retreat. 

He returned to America more enthusiastic than ever 
about his plans for exploring the north of Greenland, 
and fully convinced that he could accomplish great 
things there, given the opportunity. It was not, how- 
ever, until the year 1891 that he was able to set out 
on his second journey on the steamboat Kite, com- 
manded by Captain Richard Pick. On this occasion 
he was accompanied by his wife ; Dr Cook, the distin- 
guished ethnologist ; Gibson, an ornithologist ; John 
Verhoeff, a mineralogist ; his own coloured servant ; and 
last, but by no means least, by Elvind Astrup, a young 
Norwegian who did splendid work not only on this 
but also on Peary's later expeditions. There was also 
on board a party of nine men of science, with Professor 
Heilprin at their head, whose task it was to make re- 
searches and observations while Peary was away on his 
long journey. 

One serious misadventure marked the passage out, 



NANSEN AND PEARY 265 

as Peary had the misfortune to break his leg, with the 
result that he was absolutely helpless when the party 
landed at M'Cormick Bay, and was precluded from 
taking part in any of the short autumn trips round 
Inglefield Gulf. 

The first days after their arrival at the bay were, of 
course, spent in the erection of the portable dwelling 
which they had brought with them, and to which they gave 
the name of Redcliffe House. As soon as spring came 
round Peary, who, under the care of his wife, had com- 
pletely recovered, set off on a short sledge journey round 
Inglefield Gulf, on which Mrs Peary accompanied him. 

It was not, however, until May 14 that he started on 
the long journey which was to be the crowning glory 
of his expedition. The first part of the journey was 
slow, for it took him a week to round Inglefield Gulf, 
during which time he discovered no fewer than thirty 
glaciers, ten of them of the first magnitude. On 
reaching the divide between Whale Sound and Kane 
Sea, he sent back two of the four men who had set out 
with him, and with Astrup as his only companion he 
pushed on north. On June 26 they reached the northern 
edge of the inland ice and, unable to proceed any 
further in that direction, they turned south-east in the 
hope that they would succeed in making the east coast 
of Greenland. Following the extreme limits of the ice- 
cap their journey brought them, on July 4, to a large 
indentation, which they named Independence Bay, in 
honour of the day. From the top of a tremendous cliff, 
4000 feet high, they obtained a magnificent view of 
the land all round them, a view which left no doubt 
whatever in their minds that Greenland was an island. 



266 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Of the twenty-one dogs with which they had started 
only eight now survived, and as they were a full 450 
miles from home, they had no choice but to make the 
best of their way back to Redcliffe House, which they 
reached without misadventure on August 6. The 
Kite arriving a few days later, Peary and his com- 
panions returned to America. Their party, however, 
had been reduced by one member, for the mineralogist, 
John Verhoeff, had been overtaken by a snowstorm 
when out hunting for specimens and had never been 
heard of again. 

Peary's experiences convinced him that there was a 
vast field for discovery in the north of Greenland, and 
he promptly set about raising the money for a third 
expedition by delivering lectures on his experiences. 
The result of his efforts was so entirely satisfactory that 
the autumn of 1893 saw him once again established in 
Whale Sound. On this occasion, however, he was able 
to find far more satisfactory quarters in Bowdoin Bay, 
an indentation on the north shore of Inglefield Gulf, 
where he erected Anniversary Lodge, a house which 
might truly be said to have the most modern improve- 
ments, in that it was actually lit by electric light sup- 
plied by a dynamo, for the working of which his steam 
launch was responsible. 

On August 29 Astrup and three companions set out 
with the object of laying down caches of provisions for 
the great spring journey. Unfortunately, however, 
they had only deposited two caches when Astrup was 
taken ill, and they had to hurry home without properly 
locating the spots. 

On September 12 an exceedingly interesting event 



NANSEN AND PEARY 267 

took place, for Mrs Peary, who was again a member of 
the expedition, presented her husband with a daughter. 
To Miss Peary consequently belongs the honour of 
having been born in a higher latitude than any other 
civilised being. 

It was on March 6, 1894, that Peary set out on his 
spring journey accompanied by seven men, twelve 
sledges and ninety-two dogs, and with sufficient provi- 
sions to last for six months. Unfortunately, however, the 
weather was by no means so favourable as it had been 
on his previous journey. The cold was intense, and 
his men were frost-bitten and his dogs frozen to death 
before his eyes. Sending back the greater number of 
his party, Peary pushed on pluckily with three com- 
panions, but circumstances were too much for him, and 
he had to confess himself beaten in the end. When 
She finally reached Bowdoin Bay, on April 15, only 
twenty-six dogs out of the original ninety-two remained 
to him. 

The rest of the spring and the early part of the 
summer were spent in exploring and mapping out the 
unknown shores of Melville Bay. During the course 
jof one of these journeys Peary reached Cape York, 
where he "unsnowed" two gigantic meteorites, the 
ireports of which had attracted many previous ex- 
iplorers, none of whom, however, had managed to find 
them. Later on he succeeded in conveying them to 
America, as well as a third of such vast proportions 
that its removal entailed several months of hard work. 

In August the Falcon came to fetch the explorers, 
but Peary was by no means satisfied with his year's 
work, and though prudence undoubtedly demanded 



268 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

that he should return at once, seeing that he was short 
of provisions and fuel and that he had no means of 
knowing whether or not a ship would be able to 
visit him during the following year, with charac- 
teristic determination he proclaimed his intention of 
staying at Bowdoin Bay for another year with two 
volunteers, Hugh Lee and his coloured servant Henson. 
So, sending the rest of his party home, he set about 
making preparations for the winter. The greater part 
of the autumn was spent in gaining Eskimo recruits, 
in hunting and in attempting to find the caches laid 
down by Astrup. In the last of these enterprises Peary 
failed completely, but the hunting was very fairly 
successful, with the result that he and his two com- 
panions were able to spend the winter in comparative 
comfort. The spring journey was begun on April 2, 
1895, the party consisting of Peary himself, his two 
volunteers, four Eskimos, and sixty-three dogs, drawing 
four sledges. The Eskimos did not prove of much 
assistance as one of them deserted with his outfit on 
the third day, while, a little later, Peary had to send 
back the remaining three. With Lee and Henson he 
now pushed on in the face of appalling difficulties. 
Snow-storms raged around them, obliterating their land- 
marks and so concealing their cache of pemmican that 
it was nowhere to be found. Lee was frost-bitten, the 
dogs died one after another, and game was conspicuous 
by its absence, yet Peary persevered and, by dint of 
almost superhuman efforts, he arrived within a short 
distance of Independence Bay early in May. Here he 
was so fortunate as to kill ten musk-oxen, but no other 
game of any kind was to be found, and they now found 



NANSEN AND PEARY 269 

themselves under the necessity of rushing back to the 
camp with all possible despatch. They had only nine 
dogs left and food for seventeen days, but by going 
on short rations and making forced marches they 
succeeded in winning their desperate race against 
starvation. They were only in the nick of time, how- 
ever, for when they reached Bowdoin Bay, on June 25, 
they had eaten their last scrap of food, while only one 
dog remained to them out of the sixty-five with which 
they had started. The Kite calling for them later in 
the summer, they reached Newfoundland in September 
after one of the most hazardous journeys on record. 






CHAPTER XXIX 

THE JACKSON-HARMSWORTH EXPEDITION 

IT was, no doubt, the success which attended Mr 
Leigh Smith's expedition that first directed the 
attention of another well-known English explorer, 
Mr F. G. Jackson, to Franz Josef Land, and led him 
to think seriously of undertaking an expedition thither, 
with a view partly to surveying that still almost un- 
known country and partly to pushing on, if possible, 
another step towards the Pole. 

Mr Jackson first published the plans of his proposed 
journey in 1892, but, though they were very generally 
approved by those who were experienced in Arctic 
research, no one seemed particularly anxious to provide 
the necessary funds. Accordingly, in 1893, he deter- 
mined to undertake an expedition to the Yugor Straits, 
with the double object of exploring Waigatz Island 
and of testing the equipment which he proposed to 
use on his voyage to Franz Josef Land. His trip was 
attended by complete success, and when he had ac- 
complished the task which he had set himself, he 
determined to extend his journey round the White 
Sea and through Lapland, in order that he might 
become conversant with the ways of the Laps as well 
as with those of the Samoyads, with whom he had 
been travelling. We may mention incidentally that 



JACKSON AND HARMS WORTH 271 

it was on this journey that he first learnt the value of 
the hardy Russian ponies which proved of such in- 
estimable service to him on his later expedition. 

It was while he was still far from home that he 
received a telegram conveying the welcome news that 
Mr Alfred Harmsworth (now Lord Northcliffe) had 
generously undertaken to provide the funds for the 
journey to Franz Josef Land of which he hoped such 
great things. He did not return to England im- 
mediately, thinking that the objects of his new ex- 
pedition would be better served if he were to continue 
his investigations in Lapland. These completed, he 
hurried back and instantly set about his preparations 
for his forthcoming campaign. 

His first care was, of course, to select a vessel suit- 
able for the conveyance of his party and his stores to 
the unknown country which he was to explore, and his 
choice finally lit upon the Windward, a steam whaler 
of 461 tons. The expedition was to be provisioned for 
three years, and with such care and good sense was the 
equipment prepared, that nothing that the travellers 
could possibly need during their lengthy stay in the 
Arctic regions was omitted. Mr Jackson was no less 
fortunate in the selection of his staff, and much of the 
great success which attended his expedition was due 
to the work of his doctor, Reginald Hettlitz ; his 
botanist, Mr Harry Fisher ; and his mineralogist, Mr 
Child. 

The Windward set sail down the Thames in July 
1894, and early in August she reached Archangel, 
where she took on board a number of dogs, four ponies, 
and three portable houses. The passage across Barents 



272 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Sea was not unattended by difficulties and occupied 
some eleven days, while another fortnight was spent in 
tacking about before Bell Island, a nearer approach to 
the land being made impossible by the girdle of ice 
which surrounded it On September 10, however, the 
Windward cast anchor off Cape Flora, the western- 
most point of Northbrook Island, and here the party 
erected their winter house, to which they gave the 
name of Elmwood. 

Mr Jackson made it evident at once that he had at 
any rate one of the qualities essential to a successful 
Arctic explorer, in that he was a splendid disciplinarian. 
He was convinced that if good health was to be pre- 
served, every member of his party must be kept con- 
stantly busy, so he saw to j|it that his men always had 
plenty of occupation. If they were not at work, they 
were sent out hunting, game being exceedingly plentiful 
on the island. If they were not hunting, they were 
made to play football or other games. The results 
triumphantly justified his methods, for during the three 
years that they spent on Franz Josef Land not a 
member of his party had an hour's illness and not a 
single man had to knock of work through indisposition. 
The crew of the Windward, on the other hand, who 
were not under his immediate supervision, and who 
were allowed to please themselves as to how they 
occupied their time, became subject to scurvy, to which 
several of them succumbed. 

The winter passed without incident, and as soon as 
spring came round they set about trying their sledges 
and making preparations for their first journey of ex- 
ploration. This was begun on April 16, and in the 



JACKSON AND HARMSWORTH 273 

course of it Jackson and his two companions, Lieutenant 
Armitage and Blonkvist, pushed north as far as Back 
Island, where Nansen and Johansen were destined to 
build their winter hut four months later. They were 
prevented from going much further, however, by the 
fact that their way led them through a mixture of snow 
and mud, which their ponies were quite unable to 
negotiate ; accordingly there was nothing for them to 
do but to make their way home to Elmwood House. 

In June the Windward got up steam and set sail for 
England, leaving the explorers behind. Her voyage 
proved to be one of the most trying description, for so 
dense was the pack that it took her sixty-five days to 
plough her way through it. No provision had been 
made for such an eventuality, and she soon found her- 
self short of coal, with the result that she had to burn 
her masts, her bridge, and any other timber that she 
could spare in order to keep her engines going. 

Meanwhile Jackson and his companions, having been 
foiled in their attempt to penetrate far to the north, 
turned their attention to the vast tract of undiscovered 
country which lay to the west of them, and they spent 
the rest of the summer in exploring and mapping out 
Alexandra Land as far as Cape Mary Harmsworth. 

Two serious losses befell them during their second 
winter at Cape Flora, in that one of their ponies was 
found hanged in its stable one morning, while another 
fell sick and died. Otherwise, however, the winter 
months passed without incident. 

The spring was spent in another trip north along the 
shores of British Channel, during the course of which 
Jackson and his companions added islands and capes 
s 



274 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

innumerable to the map of Franz Josef Land. Their 
discoveries, however, though of great geographic value, 
need not be recorded at length here, and it was not 
until June 17 that an event occurred of which we must 
give any detailed account. We leave Mr Jackson to 
tell the story in his own words. 

" Just after dinner," he writes, " Armitage came 
rushing down to tell me that through his field-glass he 
could see a man on the floe to the S.S.E. of Cape Flora, 
about four miles off. I could hardly believe it ; such a 
thing seemed utterly impossible, and thought he had 
mistaken a walrus on the ice for a man, but having 
got a glass I could see he was correct. I could also 
make out somewhat indistinctly a staff or mast, with 
another man apparently standing near it close to the 
water's edge. It occurred then to me that it might be 
one of my own men, although they had all been at 
dinner a few minutes before, but I, however, found that 
all were present. I got a gun with all speed, and firing 
off a shot on the bank to endeavour to arrest the 
stranger's attention, I started off to meet him coming 
across the ice. . . . On our approaching each other, 
about three miles distant from the land, I saw a tall 
man on ski with roughly-made clothes and an old felt 
hat on his head. He was covered with oil and grease, 
and black from head to foot. I at once concluded from 
his wearing ski that he was no English sailor, but that 
he must be a man from some Norwegian walrus sloop 
who had come to grief and wintered somewhere on 
Franz Josef Land in very rough circumstances. His 
hair was very long and dirty, his complexion appeared 
to be fair, but dirt prevented me from being sure on 



JACKSON AND HARMSWORTH 275 

this point, and his beard was straggly and dirty also. 
We shook hands heartily, and I expressed the greatest 
pleasure at seeing him. I inquired if he had a ship. 
' No,' he replied, ' my ship is not her- ' — rather sadly 
I thought — and then he remarked, in reply to my 
question, that he had only one companion, who was at 
the floe edge. It then struck me that his features, in 
spite of the black grease and long hair and beard, 
resembled Nansen, whom I had met once in London 
before he started in 1893, and I exclaimed : — 

" { Aren't you Nansen ? ' 

" To which he replied : — 

" ' Yes, I am Nansen.' 

"With much heartiness I shook him by the hand 
and said, ' By jove, I'm damned glad to see you ! ' " 

Such, then, was the unexpected meeting between two 
explorers who were both trying from different direc- 
tions to solve the problem of the frozen north. It was 
as well for Nansen and his companion that that meet- 
ing took place, for they had to confess that they were 
hopelessly lost, and small wonder, for Payer's map of 
the north of Franz Josef Land was quite unrecognisable, 
while, as their watches had run down, they were unable 
to discover their longitude. Now, however, their 
troubles were at an end, and they were saved from the 
necessity of attempting that awful voyage to Spitz- 
bergen in two frail kayacks, a voyage which must 
almost inevitably have resulted in their deaths. 

Jackson lost no time in taking the two weary 
travellers back to his hut, where they were refreshed 
with a good meal and a wash and brush up — the first 
in which they had been able to indulge for a year. We 



276 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

are told that so begrimed were they after their journey, 
that the first application of soap and water had almost 
as little effect upon them as it had upon the historic 
tramp who washed and washed till he came to a flannel 
shirt. Time and honest endeavour, however, made 
their due impression, and Nansen and Johansen were 
soon able to boast that they cut as respectable figures 
as any of their companions. 

The two explorers had, of course, much in common, 
and they soon became such fast friends that Nansen's 
pleasure at the arrival of the Windward on July 26 and 
the prospect of an immediate return to the civilised 
world which it brought with it, was tempered by very 
real regret. However his course was naturally obvious, 
and when the ship, after discharging the stores which 
she had brought for Jackson, sailed once more for Eng- 
land, she took with her Nansen and Johansen, as well 
as Blonkvist, whose health would not stand another 
winter in the Arctic, and Fisher, the botanist, who had 
now completed his researches into the flora of Franz 
Josef Land. 

During the ensuing year Jackson continued his ex- 
ploration of the new land, and his labours were always 
attended by the happiest results. The sum of them 
was to prove that it consisted of a cluster of islands, 
separated from one another by channels in which ran 
exceedingly rapid currents. These currents, keeping 
the ice constantly in motion, often made travelling ex- 
ceedingly difficult, but they ensured open waterways, 
in which walruses abounded. He further proved that 
several countries hitherto marked on the maps, such as 
Gillies and King Oscar Lands, did not exist at all, and 






JACKSON AND HARMSWORTH 277 

made countless scientific observations of the greatest 
value. 

He had hoped that he might be able to extend his 
visit to Franz Josef Land over another year, with a view 
to making an effort to push north. This, however, was 
not to be, and when the Windward called for him on 
August 6, the force of circumstances compelled him 
and his party to return home to England. This they 
accordingly proceeded to do, having first established a 
depot of provisions for the benefit of Andree, should 
fortune direct the course of that intrepid explorer 
thither. 




FRANZ JOSEF 
LAND 



CHAPTER XXX 

NANSEN AND THE " FRAM " 

A CAREFUL study of the history of Arctic travel 
had convinced Nansen that the routes by which 
most of his predecessors had attempted to reach 
the North Pole were either impracticable or else 
beset by such difficulties that he who could over- 
come them would be fortunate indeed. Vessels at- 
tempting to penetrate far to the north had always 
been stopped by an impenetrable barrier of ice. 
Travellers trying to make the journey by sledge had 
found the ice so rough and the movements of the 
pack so disconcerting, that they had been invariably 
compelled to turn back before they were very far 
on their way, while, so far as has yet been discovered, 
there is no land in a sufficiently northerly latitude to 
form a suitable base. 

The experiences of the Jeannette, however, turned 
his thoughts in another direction. It will be remem- 
bered that that ill-fated vessel was caught in the ice 
near Wrangel Land and drifted thence to New 
Siberia, where she went down. Three years later 
there was found, frozen into the drift-ice in the 
neighbourhood of Julianshaab, on the south-west 
coast of Greenland, a number of articles which had 
obviously come from the sunken vessel. These articles 

were first discovered by the Eskimos, and were after- 

278 



NANSEN AND THE "FRAM" 279 

wards collected by Mr Lytzen, colonial manager at 
Julianshaab, among them being a list of provisions 
signed by De Long, a pair of sealskin breeches marked 
with the name of Louis Noros, one of the Jeannette's 
crew, the peak of a cap belonging to Nindemann, 
another of the sailors, and a manuscript list of the 
ship's boats. 

Professor Mohn, in a lecture delivered before the 
scientific society of Christiania, showed that these articles 
must have drifted across the Pole, a theory which was 
supported by the fact that Siberian larches had often 
been found on the east coast of Greenland ; and Nansen 
came to the conclusion that where they could drift he 
could drift too. His proposal to put his theory to the 
test was greeted with a hurricane of disapproval, especi- 
ally as it involved the abandonment of the well-known 
Arctic canon never to leave the shore. He was told 
that human hands could not construct a ship which 
could withstand the enormous pressure of the winter 
ice, and that he was simply throwing away the lives of 
himself and of those who accompanied him. Nansen, 
however, thought otherwise, and in October 1892 a 
specially-built vessel was launched at the mouth of the 
Christiania Fiord, and was christened by Mrs Nansen 
the Fram — anglice, " Forward." 

The sides of the Fram were thirty inches thick, and 
strengthened with stanchions at points where the 
pressure was expected to be greatest, while her hull 
was specially shaped in the hope that she would rise 
when squeezed by the ice. She was only 128 feet long, 
but very broad of beam. Her speed, under steam and 
sail, was expected to be eight or nine knots an hour 



2 8o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

in very favourable circumstances ; under steam alone 
she was not expected to average more than three knots, 
but speed was not, of course, a primary consideration. 
Her crew consisted of thirteen, and included Captain 
Sverdrup, Lieutenant Johansen, who was destined to 
accompany Nansen on his perilous journey over the 
ice, and Lieutenant Scott-Hansen, who was chiefly 
responsible for the scientific observations. 

The Fram set sail from Christiania on June 24, 1893, 
and was soon making her way along the north coast of 
Europe. On August 4 she entered the dreaded Kara 
Sea, but it was not until the end of the month, when 
off Taimur Island, that she met with her first serious 
opposition from ice. Here Nansen discovered a new 
group of islands, and at one time he thought that 
he would be obliged to make their closer acquaintance 
by wintering off them. Fortunately, however, a storm 
broke up the ice on September 6, and he was able to 
proceed on his way past Cape Chelyuskin. He had 
intended to call at Olenek for dogs, but the summer 
was so far advanced that he did not dare to linger on 
the way, so he pushed north past New Siberia and 
entered the pack at lat. 78° 50' on September 29. 

As soon as the ice had really gripped the vessel and 
there was no further prospect of release, preparations 
for the winter were set on foot. The rudder was shipped, 
the hold was cleared out to make room for a joiner's 
shop, the engine was taken to pieces and a mechanical 
workshop set up in its room, a smithy was erected, tin- 
smith's work was done in the chart-room, and shoe- 
maker's and sailmaker's work in the saloon. " There 
was nothing," says Nansen, "from the most delicate in- 



NANSEN AND THE " FRAM " 281 

struments down to wooden shoes and axe handles that 
could not be made on the Fram. When we were 
found to be short of sounding line, a grand rope-walk 
was constructed on the ice. . . . There was always 
something to occupy us, and it was not difficult to 
find work for each man that gave him sufficient exer- 
cise and so much distraction that the time did not 
seem to him unbearably long." 

It is not to be supposed, however, that Nansen did 
not suffer occasionally from ennui ; and this was 
especially the case when the Fram, to his disgust, 
was drifted steadily south-west for several weeks. 
Presently, however, she started once more on her 
northward journey, and from that time onward her 
course gave her crew little cause for dissatisfaction, 
though she did not approach the Pole quite so nearly 
as had been hoped ; the ship, moreover, behaved her- 
self splendidly in the ice and resisted the most serious 
pressures. Contrary to the opinion of many experts, 
who had held that, frozen into the pack as she would 
be, she could not possibly rise from her bed and thrust 
the oncoming ice beneath her, she would sometimes be 
raised so high above the surface that her bottom was 
almost visible. 

Though Nansen saw from the Fram's drift that she 
would follow very nearly the course he had anticipated, 
he thought that still more might be accomplished, and 
that the sea which lay beyond the ship's route could be 
more thoroughly examined if he and a companion left 
her with dogs and sledges. Such an expedition could 
not, of course, hope to find the vessel again, as she 
would be constantly changing her whereabouts, and it 






282 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

would be like looking for a needle in a bottle of hay. 
The prospect of being obliged to find his own way 
home to civilised regions did not, however, deter the 
explorer, and, leaving Sverdrup in command, he started 
off on March 14, 1895, accompanied by Johansen, 
with twenty-eight dogs, three sledges, two kayacks, 
thirty days' food for their dogs, and a hundred days' 
rations for themselves. 

The venture was rash almost to the verge of madnes:, 
but Nansen and Johansen entered upon it with such 
spirit and pluck that they succeeded in carrying it 
through successfully, though not without suffering 
fearful hardships. High-piled ridges of ice, on the 
slopes and sumn its of which the snow never had time 
to collect, were constantly forming in their path, and 
over these the men had to drag the sledges while the 
dogs, who did not care for that kind of amusement, sat 
down and looked on. To their great disappointment, 
too, the ice grew worse and worse as they journeyed 
north, till at last, on April 7, Nansen climbed to the 
top of the highest point that he could find, and sa^ 
nothing but packed, piled-up ice right on to the horizon, 
looking, as he says, " like a rough sea that had been 
petrified." Such being the case, he came to the con- 
clusion that it would be folly to continue the struggle, 
so, having reached lat. 86° 14' N., the farthest point 
attained up till then, he and Johansen determined to 
turn south and make for Franz Joseph Land. 

Soon after they had started on the return journey 
they came upon better ice and progressed rather more 
rapidly. Unfortunately, however, in their anxiety to 
push on, they occasionally made inordinately long 



NANSEN AND THE " FRAM " 283 

marches, with the result that, when they halted for the 
night on April 12, more than thirty-six hours had 
elapsed since they last pitched their tents, and their 
watches had run down. They were able to make a 
reasonably good guess at the time, but from that day 
onward they were never able to obtain their longitude 
with any certainty. 

The inaccuracy of Payer's map, too, gave them a 
great deal of worry. Naturally believing in the exist- 
ence of Petermann's Land, they expected to sight it 
towards the end of April. May passed, however, and 
then the beginning of June, and still no land came in 
sight. By the 22nd of the month travelling had 
become so arduous that, having shot three bears and 
a seal, thus relieving themselves of all fear of starva- 
tion, they determined to wait till the warmer weather 
had melted the snow. It was not until July 22 that 
they started once more on their way, and two days 
later their eyes were gladdened with the sight of land. 
To reach it, however, was no easy matter, for the ice 
was broken up by numberless channels which were 
covered so thickly with crushed floe that it was im- 
possible for them to use their kayacks. Accordingly 
they were obliged to jump from one piece of ice to 
another, dragging the sledges after them — a most 
hazardous proceeding which often nearly resulted in 
disaster. 

It was while they were preparing to negotiate an 
open lead that an incident happened which almost 
cost Johansen his life. Nansen was busy with his 
kayack, which he was holding with one hand to pre- 
vent it from slipping into the water, when he heard a 



284 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

scuffle behind him, and Johansen's voice cried out, 
" Take the gun ! " 

Looking round, he saw that an enormous bear was 
throwing itself on his companion, who was lying on 
his back. He tried to seize his gun, which was lying 
on the fore-deck, but the kayack slipped out of his 
grasp into the water. " You must look sharp if you 
want to be in time," said Johansen quite quietly, and 
Nansen, making a supreme effort, just managed to 
clutch his gun and shoot the bear before it was on 
its prey. 

After immense labour they succeeded in reaching 
Frederic Jackson Island, and here they decided to 
spend the wi iter, as they realised that it was too late 
in the season for them to attempt the long and 
dangerous voyage to Spitzbergen. Accordingly they 
set about building a hut and shooting walruses and 
bears, of which they found such an abundance that 
they had soon placed themselves beyond the possibility 
of starvation. The hut was small, but it was fairly 
comfortable. " By the aid of the lamps," says 
Nansen, " we succeeded in keeping the temperature 
at about freezing-point in the middle of the hut, 
while it was, of course, lower at the walls. The 
latter were covered with a thick coating of frost and 
ice, which in the lamplight gave them such a 
splendidly marmoreal appearance that in our happier 
moments we could dream that we dwelt in marble 
halls." 

They had nothing whatever to do, so for twenty 
hours out of the twenty-four they remained in bed, 
which, consisting as it did of huge, hard stones, was 



NANSEN AND THE FRAM " 285 

not particularly comfortable. Christmas Day they 
celebrated by turning their shirts inside out. Their 
clothes, by the way, were always a source of worry, for 
washing was a problem which they were quite unable 
to solve. They succeeded in keeping their persons 
fairly clean, partly by scraping themselves with knives 
and partly by rubbing in bear's fat and wiping it off 
with moss ; but though they tried the effect of boiling 
their underclothing and then scraping it with a knife, 
the plan did not answer very well, and they pined for 
a cake of soap. 

On May 19 they started off once more, and managed 
to make fairly good progress either on the ice or in 
open water. They had one or two accidents, one of 
which might have resulted disastrously, for the kayack 
which had their provisions and guns on board started 
off on a voyage on its own account, leaving them on 
shore. Nansen was obliged to swim after it, and 
became so exhausted in the struggle with the bitter 
water that he was only just able to reach it and 
scramble over the gunwale. Their troubles, however, 
were now at an end, for, when preparing breakfast one 
morning, Nansen heard dogs barking. At first he 
could hardly believe his ears, but the sound came 
nearer and nearer till at last there could be no doubt 
about it. Rushing off on his skis to learn the solution 
of the mystery, he met F. G. Jackson, from whom he 
received the warmest welcome. As, however, we have 
described the meeting in the chapter devoted to the 
Jackson expedition, we need not dwell on it again 
here. 

In the meanwhile the Fram drifted steadily on with 



286 



ARCTIC EXPLORATION 



the ice, reaching, on October 16, almost as high a lati- 
tude as that attained by Nansen. She pursued her 
journey to the edge of the pack without misadventure, 
and after a series of blasting operations she was set 
free of the ice and made her way home in safety. 




CHAPTER XXXI 

CONWAY AND ANDREE 

THOUGH Nordenskiold had succeeded in exploring 
North-East Land pretty thoroughly, and had 
shown that it is practically nothing but one large ice- 
field, for many years very little attention had been 
given to West Spitzbergen, and up till the end of last 
century nothing whatever was known about its forma- 
tion or its geographical features. In 1896, however, 
the famous mountaineer, Sir Martin Conway, seeking 
for fresh worlds to conquer, decided to repair thither 
himself and to elucidate once and for all the mystery 
that surrounded that part of the world. 

Information concerning the nature of the regions 
over which he proposed to travel was, of course, diffi- 
cult to obtain. However he read all the literature 
that existed upon the subject, and having equipped 
himself with the Nansen sledges and ponies which, he 
gathered, would be absolutely essential for success, he 
started off on his travels with a party consisting of 
Mr E. J. Garwood, his photographer, Dr Gregory, the 
geologist, Trevor Battye, the ornithologist, and, as 
artist, his nephew, H. E. Conway. 

On reaching Advent Bay, which he proposed to 

make his starting-place, he was surprised to find an 

inn in the process of erection by an enterprising 

Norwegian company. An inn in an uninhabited 

287 



288 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

country like Spitzbergen might seem de trop, but the 
explanation was that a series of trips had been or- 
ganised thither, and a steamer was bringing out tourists 
once a week, most of whom were probably attracted 
by Andree's balloon, then waiting at the north end of 
the island for a chance to start on its hazardous 
voyage. 

Leaving three members of his party to prosecute 
their scientific researches near the coast, Conway and 
Mr Garwood set off on their journey across the island 
on June 20. It was not long before they discovered 
that their sledges and ponies were nothing but a 
handicap. They had expected, of course, to find the 
interior covered by a great ice-sheet like that of North- 
East Land. They actually discovered it to be a land 
of temperate climate, intersected by green mountains 
and boggy valleys, which were kept in a condition of 
perpetual stickiness by the constant rain. In the mud 
thus formed the ponies were always sinking, and many 
arduous hours were spent every day in digging or 
pulling them out. 

Conway had meant to make a hurried scamper across 
the island and back again. He found, however, that 
the island was in a process of mountain manufacture, 
and that the canons in which the interior abounded, 
slowly eating their way into the ridges, were converting 
them by degrees into isolated peaks. This process he 
found so interesting that he determined to change his 
plans, and he accordingly travelled slowly on, over the 
magnificent Ivory Glacier, down to Fouls Bay, and 
then back by a route that differed slightly from that of 
his outward journey. 



CONWAY AND ANDREE 289 

On reaching Advent Bay he learnt that a tourist 
steamer had succeeded in advancing without difficulty 
or danger to lat. 8i° 32' N., an amazing record for such 
a boat. Fired by this, he promptly hired the 12 ton 
steamer Expres, and started off on a trip round the 
coast, during the course of which he paid a visit to 
Wellmann's hut and Andree's balloon. He would 
have liked to have done more, but there was a 
dangerous ice-blink in the sky, and the captain refused 
point-blank to venture any further in such a tin-kettle 
of a boat. 

Sir Martin Conway paid another visit to Spitzbergen 
in the following year, on which he was again accom- 
panied by Mr Garwood. On this occasion the two 
explorers occupied themselves chiefly with studying 
the formation of the glaciers. 

As we have just seen, while Conway was making 
the first crossing of Spitzbergen, Andree was waiting 
for an opportunity to start on the daring but ill-fated 
Expedition for the discovery of the North Pole, by 
which his name will always live in the annals of Arctic 
exploration. Andree was a Swedish engineer and an 
aeronaut of unusual skill and enterprise, and it was the 
success of his attempt to cross the Baltic in a balloon 
that led him to think seriously of embarking upon that 
project which was to cost him his life. The idea was, 
it must be confessed, exceedingly tempting, and 
sounded feasible enough. A steady south wind would 
waft a balloon in a few hours to a point which a 
traveller over the ice could only reach after weeks of 
strenuous labour, and Andree had every reason to 
hope that within a very short time of his departure 



2 9 o ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

from Spitzbergen he would be hanging suspended over 
the Pole itself. 

The project, though its extreme rashness was not to 
be denied, commended itself to many, and the aeronaut 
had little difficulty in obtaining the necessary funds, 
among those who contributed to them being the King 
of Sweden, the late Alfred Nobel, and Baron Dickson. 
The construction of the balloon was entrusted to 
Lachambre of Paris. The material used was Chinese 
Pongee silk, cemented together in double, threefold, 
and fourfold layers, and covered with a coating of 
special varnish. Its cubical contents were 158,294 
feet. 

It was to be guided by a sail fitted with guide ropes 
which would drag along the ground and prevent the 
balloon from being driven at the full force of the wind 
The difference between the velocity of the wind and of 
the retarded balloon was to be utilised for steering. 
On trial the plan was found to answer very well. 

The Virgo, carrying with it Andree, his balloon, and 
a party of geologists, left Tromso on June 14, 1896, and 
nine days later a suitable place for building the balloon 
house was found on Danes Island. The landing of the 
balloon and the building of the house occupied nearly 
a month, and it was not until July 27 that everything 
was ready for a start. Unfortunately, however, the 
wind, which had been for the most part favourable 
while the preparations were in progress, now veered 
round, and for the rest of the summer it blew steadily 
from the north, when it did not drop altogether. Week 
after week passed by without bringing any prospects of 
a start, and at last Andree was obliged to pack up his 



CONWAY AND ANDREE 291 

balloon and return home, hoping for better luck next 
year. 

On May 30 he was back at Danes Island once more 
with his balloon, which had been undergoing sundry 
modifications during the winter. The house had fallen 
somewhat into disrepair, but it was soon put in order, 
and the inflation of the balloon, which was begun on 
June 19, was finished at midnight on the 22nd. Every- 
thing was now ready for a start, and on Sunday, July 
11, Andree decided to take advantage of a stiff breeze 
which had set in from the south. Standing in the car 
with his two companions, Fraenkel and Strindberg, he 
gave the orders for the ropes to be cut. The balloon 
rapidly ascended, to a height of 600 feet, and, after 
a temporary drop, floated away north over the flat 
peninsula of Hollaendernaes. It remained visible to 
those at Danes Island for about an hour. Then it 
disappeared over the northern horizon, never to be seen 
again. 

The only news that the world ever received of Andree 
and his companions after this did nothing towards 
solving the mystery of their fate. Of the thirteen buoys 
which he carried with him on board his balloon only 
four were ever recovered. One was picked up at 
Skjervo, in Norway, and was found to contain a 
message to the effect that it had been thrown out at 
10 o'clock on the night of July n. Another, which 
had been dispatched on its journey about an hour later, 
when the party had reached lat. 82 N., long. 25 E., was 
recovered off the coast of Iceland. The two remaining 
buoys bore no message from the explorer. On July 15, 
1897, the sailors of the s.s. Aiken shot a carrier pigeon 



292 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

which had been let loose two days previously in lat. 
82 3' N., long. 1 5 5' E., but that was the latest intelli- 
gence of the explorers that ever reached their friends 
at home. 

Many expeditions were sent out to their rescue, and 
reports were brought in by natives of shots heard upon 
the ice and figures seen on the drifting floes. Fisher- 
men, too, said that they had heard cries for help, and 
that they had seen what looked like a deflated balloon 
drifting on the sea. But, carefully though these clues 
were followed, they came to nothing, and it can only be 
supposed that, descending on some vast ice-field far 
from human aid, probably somewhere between Spitz- 
bergen, Nova Zembla, and Siberia, the unfortunate men 
perished miserably of starvation and exposure. 



CHAPTER XXXII 

THE LATER VOYAGES OF SVERDRUP AND PEARY 

AS we have already seen, it was as Nansen's com- 
panion on his journey across Greenland, and as 
his second in command on the Fram, that Otto Sver- 
drup first acquired the taste for Arctic travel which, in 
1898, led him to undertake an expedition on his own 
account. The primary object of his new journey was 
to complete the survey of the northern shores of Green- 
land which had been so brilliantly begun by Peary, and 
to discover once and for all whether there lay any land 
beyond it in the direction of the North Pole. Failing 
that, he proposed to examine Grinnell and Ellesmere 
Lands, of which vast tracts still remained totally un- 
explored. 

Sverdrup sailed from Upernavik on August 5, in our 
old friend the Fram, which had been refitted for the 
new voyage, and was soon well on his way up Smith 
Sound. On reaching Hayes Sound he decided to go 
into winter quarters there, as it was, of course, impos- 
sible to attempt to reach a much higher latitude that 
season, and there was plenty of good work to be done 
in the neighbourhood. A couple of sledge journeys 
across Ellesmere Island put him in possession of many 
new facts concerning the geographical features of that 

293 



294 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

country, and, as soon as spring came round, he began 
his preparations for pushing north. Unfortunately, 
however, the season was very unfavourable, and he 
soon found that, for that year at any rate, his project 
of following the north coast of Greenland must be put 
aside, so he determined to explore Jones Sound, which 
had never before been followed to its juncture with the 
Polar Sea. 

In this he was entirely successful, and when the next 
winter came round it found him comfortably ensconced 
in winter quarters on the south coast of Ellesmere 
Land. It was while Sverdrup was away exploring 
the coast that the career of the Fram was very nearly 
brought to an untimely end by fire. Fortunately, 
however, she was saved, and early in August she was 
afloat again. All serious thought of pushing up Smith 
Sound had now been abandoned, and instead, Sverdrup 
made for Belcher Channel, at the mouth of which the 
next winter was spent. During the spring and summer 
the work of exploration went merrily on, with the 
result that the indefatigable Sverdrup had soon added 
much of the unknown coast of North Devon to the 
charts. 

On returning to the Fram he found, to his regret, 
that she was so firmly fixed in the ice that even blasting 
operations on a large scale had no effect, and he was, 
in consequence, obliged to resign himself to the in- 
evitable and to spend another winter at the mouth of 
Belcher Channel. Fortunately, however, he had by no 
means exhausted the possibilities of that neighbour- 
hood, and he occupied himself with making a journey 
north, for which cartographers have every reason to be 



SVERDRUP AND PEARY 295 

grateful to him, though he failed in his endeavour to 
reach Aldridge's farthest. In the following summer 
the Fram was set free, and was able to return to civilised 
regions. 

Sverdrup's voyage was unrelieved by any very sen- 
sational or exciting incidents, but the work that he did 
during those four years was admirable. He mapped 
out the west coast of Ellesmere Land — a most arduous 
task, as it is broken up by a singularly intricate system 
of fiords — he discovered three large islands west of that 
land, he explored North Devon and the northern shores 
of North Cornwall and Findlay Island, and he proved 
that land existed north of the Parry Islands, a point 
on which diverse opinions had hitherto been held. 
Consequently, though he never reached the northern 
shores of Greenland for which he had set out, he had 
no reason to be dissatisfied with the result of his 
journey. 

The energy and enterprise which Lieutenant Peary 
displayed in carrying on his chosen work in the Polar 
Regions aroused so much sympathy in America, that 
not long ago a number of those who were interested in 
it formed a club which they called the Peary Arctic 
Club, and which was founded with a view to providing 
him with funds for carrying on the explorations in 
which he had already achieved so conspicuous a success. 
It was principally owing to the exertions of this club 
that in 1898 Peary was able to set sail from Sidney in 
the Windward, which had been presented to him by 
Sir Alfred Harmsworth, with the double end in view 
of completing his examination of the northern shores 
of Greenland, and, if possible, of reaching the North 



296 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Pole. This expedition was, probably, the most 
perfectly planned that has ever set out from any 
shores. 

The Windward had been preceded by the auxiliary 
ship the Hope, which, after depositing her stores at 
Etah, sailed for home, while the Windward herself 
tried to push on north up Smith Sound. Ice, however, 
proved an insurmountable obstacle, and she was obliged 
to go into winter quarters near Cape D'Urville, on the 
north side of Princess Marie Bay. Peary's plans for 
the autumn were threefold. In the first place, he 
wished to survey the land around his winter quarters, 
in the second place, he was anxious to obtain a supply 
of fresh meat for his party, and, in the third place, he 
intended to convey as large a supply of provisions as 
possible along the coast. He was completely success- 
ful in fulfilling each of these three objects. By the end 
of September he had explored much of the surrounding 
country, proving the continuity of Ellesmere and 
Grinnell lands, and dissipating several illusions which 
existed concerning Hayes Sound, which he was unable 
to find at all, Buchanan Bay, which had hitherto been 
held to be a strait, and Bache Promontory, which was 
popularly supposed to be an island. Early in September 
he relieved himself of all further anxiety concerning his 
supply of fresh meat, by killing a herd of seventeen 
musk-oxen, while, by using every ray of moonlight and 
often working in complete darkness, he had, by Decem- 
ber 4, cached 3300 lbs. of provisions at Cape Wilkes. 
" No one," he says, " who has not had the actual 
experience can imagine the work and annoyances 
involved in transporting, in semi- or complete darkness, 



SVERDRUP AND PEARY 297 

those supplies along the frightful ice-foot which lines 
the Grinnell land-coast." 

On December 20, when the winter, that is to say, was 
at its worst, he started off with six men and thirty dogs 
on a singularly unattractive journey to Fort Conger. 
The darkness was intense, the weather was bad and the 
way lay through most unpleasant places, but they 
stumbled on over the rough ice as best they could, and 
on January 6 they succeeded in reaching their destina- 
tion. Peary, unfortunately, had to pay for his boldness 
in thus facing the Arctic winter, for he found, on 
arriving at the Fort, that both his feet were so badly 
frost-bitten that he was unable to walk, and when the 
time came to turn he had to be lashed to a sledge and 
dragged the whole way home. Worse, however, was 
to come, for the doctor found it necessary to amputate 
eight of his toes on his arrival at the ship in March, 
and Peary felt the effects of the operation for a long 
while afterwards. But he was not the sort of man to 
give in even to such a disaster as this, and in the early 
summer he insisted on making another trip to Fort 
Conger, in spite of the pain that walking over the 
hummocky ice caused him. 

The Windward was set free in August, and pro- 
ceeded at once to Etah, where Peary had decided to 
spend the winter, as he did not consider the ship fitted 
for an attempt to push northward through the ice. 
Here she was joined by the Diana, which had been 
sent out with supplies, and, after spending a few weeks 
in walrus-hunting, the two ships sailed in company for 
America. 

During the latter part of the winter Peary and his 



298 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

whole party left Etah for Fort Conger, which they 
succeeded in reaching by the end of March. After a 
few days' rest the commander, with some of his 
Eskimos, started off on what was to be the great 
event of the summer — a journey round the north coast 
of Greenland. The way was exceedingly rough, and 
days were often spent in the arduous work of hewing 
a way for the sledges through the rugged ice. Deter- 
mination, however, made light of the great difficulties, 
and they pushed gamely on past Lockwood's farthest 
point and round the north coast of Hazen Land, till, 
on May 19, Peary's eyes were gladdened by a fleeting 
glimpse of a mountain of peculiar shape, which he re- 
cognised as the peak that he had seen rising proudly 
to the north when, in 1895, he stood on the ice-cap 
south of Independence Bay. Unfortunately, a heavy 
fog came down upon the party, and they were pre- 
vented from exploring the rest of the Bay before lack 
of provisions obliged them to start for home two days 
later. 

Fort Conger was reached in safety, and the rest of 
the Arctic day was spent in laying in a supply of 
fresh meat for the long night. On April 17, after an 
ineffectual attempt to push north, Peary and his men 
started off for Payer Bay. Here, as he expected, he 
met the Windward, which had been sent out with 
supplies. All of these were taken ashore, and the rest 
of the summer was spent in re-establishing the line of 
caches to Fort Conger. The winter was destined to be 
trying, for several of the Eskimos fell ill, and Peary 
was consequently obliged not only to nurse and see 
after them, but also to do most of the hard work of 



SVERDRUP AND PEARY 299 

preparing for the summer journey single-handed. By 
February 1, however, his arrangements were complete 
and most of his patients had recovered, so he started 
for Fort Conger once more, intending to make it the 
base of his dash for the North Pole. It was not, how- 
ever, until April 1 that he was able to leave Cape 
Hecla with nine sledges, and he soon found that the 
lateness of his departure made it practically impossible 
for him to win success that year. Huge pressure 
ridges, great masses of ice-rubble, frequent open 
channels and deep snow made the way almost im- 
practicable, and on April 21, after reaching 8i° 17' 27", 
he had to make this entry in his journal. 

"The game is off. My dream of sixteen years is 
ended. It cleared during the night and we got under 
way this morning. Deep snow. Two small old floes. 
Then came another region of old rubble and deep 
snow. A survey from the top of a pinnacle showed 
this extended north, east and west as far as could be 
seen. The two old floes over which we had just 
come were the only ones in sight. It is impractic- 
able and I gave the order to camp. I have made 
the best fight I knew; and I believe it has been a 
good one." 

There was now nothing for them to do but to make 
the best of their way back. They reached Payer 
Harbour on May 17, where the Windward, with 
Mrs Peary and her daughter on board, joined them 
on August 5. Shortly after this the whole party set 
sail for home. 

Peary has since shown, however, that the passage 
which we have quoted from his diary was written in a 



3 oo ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

fit of momentary despondency, and that his dream of 
sixteen years is by no means over, for last year he set 
sail in the Roosevelt on another dash for the Pole, the 
results of which are now being awaited with the keenest 
interest. 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

OTHER RECENT EXPEDITIONS — ABRUZZI, WELLMANN 
AND TOLL 

FROM his earliest days Prince Louis Amadeus of 
Savoy, Duke of the Abruzzi, displayed a strong 
taste for adventure, and while he was still very young, 
he made a name for himself as a mountaineer of more 
than average daring and skill. It was in 1897, after he 
had returned from a successful attempt to climb Mount 
Elias, the great Alaskan mountain which had hitherto 
proved too much for even the most intrepid adven- 
turers, that he first conceived the idea of organising an 
expedition, the object of which should be the discovery 
of the North Pole. After spending some eighteen 
months in considering the problem and consulting 
authorities as to the best course to pursue, he pur- 
chased a whaler of 358 tons and 400 horse-power, 
which was originally known as the Jason, but which 
he rechristened the Stella Polare, and set to work to 
fit her out for the expedition which he proposed to 
make. 

The Stella Polare was provisioned for five years, 
and her company included Umberto Cagni, who sailed 
as captain, Count Franco Quirini, who served as lieu- 
tenant, Doctor A. C. Molinelli, and three Alpine guides. 
Sailing from Laurvik, near Christiania, on June 14 






302 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

1899, she touched at Tromso, Hammerfest, Vardo and 
Archangel, where she picked up 120 Siberian dogs. 
Thence her course was set for Franz Josef Land, 
which was made in the neighbourhood of Jackson's 
house at Cape Flora. Finding the house in excellent 
condition, the Duke landed a store of provisions there 
to secure himself and his crew against starvation, in 
the event of their vessel being lost. Having taken this 
precaution, he continued his voyage up British Channel, 
passing on his way the members of the Wellmann ex- 
pedition, who were being conveyed home in the Capella. 
From them he heard rumours of a new archipelago to 
the north of Franz Josef Land, of which, however, he 
subsequently failed to find any traces whatever. 

Ice rendered the passage up the channel very difficult, 
but the Stella Polare succeeded in making her way along 
Karl Alexander Land and Crown Prince Rudolph Land, 
till she doubled Cape Fligely. Here further progress 
was totally impossible, so the Duke put back to Teplitz 
Bay, where he had decided to spend the winter. 

On September 8 the ice in the harbour became very 
much disturbed, and the Stella Polare was nipped so 
severely that she sprang a leak. The engine room was 
soon flooded, and for three successive days and nights 
half the crew were at the pumps, while the rest were 
engaged in transferring the provisions and equipment 
to the shore. Thanks to the efforts of the officers and 
men, the ship was saved, but, being half full of water, 
she was perfectly useless as a place of abode, and tents 
had to be erected on land. 

The winter was spent in making such short expedi- 
tions as the weather permitted, and it was while he was 






OTHER RECENT EXPEDITIONS 303 

away on one of these that the Duke had the misfortune 
to be caught in a snowstorm, during which two of his 
fingers were so badly frost-bitten, that they had to be 
amputated. This was particularly unlucky for him, as 
the wound had not sufficiently healed by the beginning 
of March to allow him to take part in the great sledge 
expedition which was to be the chief feature of the 
voyage. The command was, accordingly, entrusted to 
Captain Cagni, who started out on the 13th with general 
instructions to push as far north as he could. During 
the early part of his journey he was accompanied by two 
supporting parties, on whose stock of provisions he and 
his men were to subsist for as long as possible, in order 
that his own little store might remain intact until he 
was well on his way. The first of these parties to leave 
him was that conducted by Lieutenant Quirini, and it 
was never heard of again. The Duke sent out search 
parties in every direction, but not a trace of their missing 
comrades could they find, and it can only be supposed 
that they either fell down in a crevasse, or were over- 
taken by a storm, and frozen to death. 

In the meanwhile, Cagni and his three companions 
pushed on northward as rapidly as possible. They found 
the ice comparatively smooth, and by April 25 they had 
reached lat. 86° 33', thus beating Nansen's record by 
some thirty miles. Unfortunately their provisions began 
to give out, and they were compelled to beat a hasty 
retreat. The outward journey had been a comparatively 
simple matter, but on their homeward way they were 
beset by all sorts of unexpected difficulties which brought 
them to the very verge of starvation. The field of ice 
over which they were travelling was constantly drifting 



3 o4 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

in a westerly direction, carrying them further and further 
from the bay which they were trying to reach. Leads 
were always opening ahead of them, which had to be 
crossed by some means or other, but, though they had 
kayacks with them, these had been so damaged as that 
they were hardly seaworthy, while it was often quite 
impossible to use them amidst the constantly shifting 
ice. On several occasions Cagni had to cross a channel 
on a small piece of floe, taking with him a rope by 
which his companions, with their impedimenta, were 
towed across on a larger block, while once a short 
voyage was made on a large sheet of ice which was 
propelled by means of the sails of the kayacks. More- 
over, their provisions were getting very low, and for the 
last fortnight of their voyage they were obliged to subsist 
entirely on their dogs. Of the eighty with which they 
started out on their journey, only six remained when at 
last they reached the ship. 

To attempt to spend another winter in the ice with 
the ship in so bad a condition would have been folly. 
Accordingly, the leak in the Stella Polaris side was 
found and stopped, she was released from her bed of 
ice by means of gun-cotton, and on September 6 she was 
safely back at Hammerfest. 

It was in 1894 that the American paper, the New 
York Herald, sent out Mr Walter Wellmann to search 
for Nansen and to make for the North Pole if con- 
ditions permitted. Leaving Tromsd on the first of 
May in the Ragnald Jarl, he set his course for Spitz- 
bergen, which he proposed to make the base of his 
sledge expedition, and his ship was soon lying off 
Walden Island. A fortnight later Wellmann set off 





THE "POLAR STAR" UNDER ICE PRESSURE 



OTHER RECENT EXPEDITIONS 305 

north with a party of thirteen men and an equipment 
of the most improved design. He had only been 
travelling for about four days, however, when a sailor 
brought him the unpleasant tidings his ship had been 
crushed to pieces by the ice, and that but little had 
been saved. Wellmann, however, was not to be 
deterred from carrying on his plans, and he sent back 
orders to the captain to build himself a hut out of the 
wreckage, while he himself pushed pluckily forward. 
Unfortunately for him the ice soon became so rough 
that further progress was out of the question, and he 
was obliged to abandon the attempt when six miles 
north of the east of the Platen Islands. Eventually 
the whole party made its way back to America in 
safety. 

Undiscouraged by his first experiences, Wellmann 
started out again in 1898 with a view to completing 
the exploration of Franz Josef Land. Reaching Cape 
Flora on July 28, he found Jackson's houses still in 
perfect condition, and, acting with Sir Alfred Harms- 
worth's permission, he proceeded to transfer one of 
them to Cape Tegetthoff, which he proposed to make 
his headquarters. During the next few months he 
succeeded in mapping out much of that part of Franz 
Josef Land which was still unknown, and he would 
doubtless have accomplished more had he not un- 
fortunately fallen down a small crevasse and injured his 
leg so severely that he was obliged to order a retreat. 

At the present moment Mr Wellmann is consider- 
ing a plan for reaching the North Pole by airship, 
in which he hopes to have the co-operation of M. 
Santos-Dumont. 
u 



306 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

Profiting by the advance of science and the ex- 
periences of their predecessors, Arctic explorers have, 
of course, reduced the danger of travelling in the 
frozen regions to a minimum, and it is very rarely 
that an expedition ends in tragedy. In recent years, 
indeed, with the exception of Captain Cagni and his 
party who perished during the Duke of the Abruzzi's 
expedition, only four men, Baron Toll, F. G. Seeberg, 
and their two hunters, have lost their lives in the cause 
of science in the Arctic regions. 

The principal field of Baron Toll's Arctic investiga- 
tions lay among the islands of the Siberian Ocean, 
whither, from the year 1885 onwards, he conducted a 
series of brilliantly successful expeditions, all of which 
added greatly to the world's knowledge of the geology, 
meteorology, botany, and palaeontology of these unex- 
plored lands. He started out on his last journey on 
July 22, 1900, in the splendidly equipped laboratory 
ship Sarya, which was provisioned for four years, with 
the object of continuing the work by which his name 
had already become famous. The first winter was 
spent at Taimur, at the mouth of the Khatanga, and 
in the following summer he rounded Cape Chelyuskin, 
paid a visit to Bennett Island, and was ultimately 
frozen into Nerpchya Bay, where he met an auxiliary 
expedition sent out under Volossovich. On June 20 
he set out with the astronomer, F. G. Seeberg, and two 
hunters on a journey of exploration. From a record 
subsequently found on Bennett Island by Lieutenant 
Kolchak, we know that the party followed the north 
coast of Kotelnyi and Thadeef Islands, keeping their 
course towards New Siberia. Here the ice broke up, 



OTHER RECENT EXPEDITIONS 307 

and, taking to their boats, they reached Bennett Island 
on August 26. The record ends with these words : 
" To-day we are going southwards. We have pro- 
visions for 14 to 20 days. All in good health." That 
is all we shall ever know of the fate of Baron Toll and 
his companions. 

M. Brusneff is of opinion that they must have perished 
on their way across from Bennett Island to New Siberia. 
Before they could have reached the end of that journey 
the weather was becoming cold and ice must have been 
forming upon the sea, making it impossible for them 
to cross it in their boats. They had only provisions 
for a fortnight or three weeks, and little prospect of 
adding to their supplies, while, to make matters worse, 
they had no warm clothing with them. It is to be 
feared that the latest victims claimed by the Arctic 
regions must have suffered severely before death 
brought them release from their troubles and robbed 
the world of two of its ablest and most enthusiastic 
men of science. 

So ends the story of Arctic exploration up to the 
present time. Those who have read these pages can- 
not fail to have been impressed by the gallantry with 
which generations of brave men have willingly faced, 
in the cause of science, the terrible privations and 
sufferings only to be met with in the frozen North, or 
to have felt proud of the part which Great Britain has 
played in solving the secrets of the Polar regions. 
Yet, dangerous though the service unquestionably is, 
it is a fact that at no time in the whole of its history 
has the death-rate among those engaged in it exceeded 
the average death-rate of the navy, while so immense 
U* 



3 o8 ARCTIC EXPLORATION 

has been the advance made in the science of Arctic 
travel during recent years that the risks attending it 
have now been reduced to a minimum. 

Much has been accomplished, but much still remains 
to be done. There is around the Pole a tract of over 
two million square miles which have never yet been 
visited by a human being, and there can be no doubt 
that if this tract can be made to give up its secrets the 
world of science will profit immensely. The Pole 
itself still remains to be conquered, and though it is 
difficult at present to see how that terribly arduous 
journey over the rough seas of palaeocrystic ice is to be 
accomplished, science will doubtless find a way. Of 
this, at any rate, we may be sure; so long as the 
Pole retains a single secret, there will not be wanting 
brave men who will gladly go through any dangers, 
and suffer any privations, if they can but wrest it from 
its prison of ice. 



The Eamburgh. GeogVapMcaJnstit,^ 




Jom\ Bartholomew & Co. 



INDEX 



Abruzzi, The Duke of the, 301 et 

seq. 
Adam, 54. 

Advance, the, 132, 182 et seq, 
Akaitcho, 49. 
Aldrich, Pelham, 216 ; sledging 

expedition, 219. 
Alert, the, voyage of, 215. 
Alexander, the, 35. 
Alexieff, 24. 
Ambler, Dr, 249. 
Anderson, James, 168. 
Andree, 289, etc. 
Ankudinoff, 24. 
Anne, Empress, 24. 
Archangel, 7. 
Armitage, Lieut, 273. 
Armstrong, Dr, 143 et seq, 
Assistance, the, 132, 152, 156. 
Astrup, Elvind, 264 et seq. 
Augustus, 60 et seq, 
Austin, Capt. H., 132 et seq. 



B 



Back, George, 31, 45, 71, 87, 95 

et seq. 
Baffin, William, 20 et seq. 
Banks, Sir Joseph, 30. 
Baptiste, 73. 
Barents, W. , 12 et seq. 
Barren Ground, 53. 
Barrow, Sir John, 30. 
Battye, Trevor, 287. 
Bear, the, 231. 
Beaumont, Lieut., Expedition of, 

221. 
Beechey, 31 et seq., 38, 79, 102. 
Beechey Island, 132. 
Belanger, 59. 

Belcher, Sir E., 150 et seq. 
Bellot, J. R., 135; death, 156. 
Bennett, J. G., 244. 



Benoit, 60. 

Bering, Vitus, expeditions of, 25, 26 

death, 26. 
Bessels, Dr, 195. 
Bird, John, 113. 
Bismarck, Count, 223. 
Blonkvist, 273. 
Blosseville, Lieut., 258. 
Blossom, H.M.S., 71. 
Bona Esperanza, the, 6. 
Booth, Felix, 86. 
Borgen, Dr, 201. 
Boyle, John, 145. 
Brainan, Sergt., 228. 
Brooks, 182, 185. 
Bruce, James, 113. 
Brusneff, 307. 
Buchan, Capt., 31 et seq. 
Buddington, Capt. J. M., 157, 194, 

195- 
Button, Sir Thomas, 20. 
Bylot, Richard, 20 et seq. 



Cabot, John, 2. 

Cabot, Sebastian. 2. 

Cagni, TJ., 301. 

Carcase, the, 27. 

Carlsen, Capt. E., 236. 

Carnegie, A., 236. 

Castor, the, 104. 

Chancellor, Capt. Richard, 6 et 

seq. 
Chester, 195. 
Child, 271. 
Chipps, Lieut., 249. 
Christian, Hans, 187 et seq., 216. 
Chydenius, Prof., 236. 
Clavering, Capt., 258. 
Clerke, Capt, 29. 
Collinson, Capt. Richard, 137 ; 

voyage of, 147 et seq., 155. 
Columbus, 2. 
Coningham, Mrs, 118. 

309 



*7«> ,ISC 



3io 



INDEX 



Conway, H. E., 287. 
Conway, Sir Martin, 287 et seq. 
Cook, Capt., 29. 
Cook, Dr, 264. 
Copeland, Dr, 201. 
Coppinger, Dr, 221. 
Credit, 58. 

Crozier, F. R. M., 117; record of, 
I7S- 



D 



Dalager, 258. 

Daniell, the Dane, 258. 

Dannett, Captain, 121. 

Davis, John, 8 et seq. 

Dease, P. C, 103. 

De Bray, 153. 

De Bruyne, 253. 

De Haven, Lieut, 132. 

De Long, Commander, 244. 

Deshneff, 24. 

Des Vceux, C. F., 117, 175. 

De Veer, Gerrit, 14. 

Diana, the, 297. 

Dickson, Oscar, 236, 241, 242, 290. 

Dietrichson, Lieut., 260. 

Digges, Sir Dudley, 18. 

Discovery, the (1778), 18 ; (1875), 

215. 
Domville, Dr, 146, 153. 
Dorothea, the, 31 et seq. 
Durfourth, Cornelius, 6. 



Eberlin, P., 258. 

Edge, Thomas, 236. 

Edward Bonaventure, the, 6. 

Egede, Han, 258. 

Egerton, Lieut., 219. 

Ehrensvard, Count, 236. 

Ezra, the, 253 et seq. 

Ekman, 236, 

Elizabeth, the, 10. 

Ellen, the, 10. 

Ellesmere Land, explored by Sver- 

drup, 293 ; by Peary, 296. 
Elson, 79. 

Emory, H. H., 231. 
Enterprise, the, 132, 137, 147 et 

seq. 
rebus, the, 116 et seq. 



Expres, the, 289. 
Express, the, 242. 



Fairholm, Commander, 117. 

Falcon, the, 267. 

Felix, the, 132. 

Fisher, H., 271. 

Fitzjames, James, 1 16 el seq. 

Forsyth, Capt., 133. 

Fortuna, the, 24. 

Fox, the, 168 et seq. 

Fox, "North- West," 21. 

Fraenkel, 291. 

Fram, the, under Nansen, 279 et 
seq. ; under Sverdrup, 293 et seq. 

Franklin, Lady, 132, 169. 

Franklin, Sir John, voyage on Trent, 
31 ; first overland journey, 45 et 
seq.; second land journey, 70 el 
seq.; last voyage, 1 16 et seq.; 
search for, 129 et seq. ; relics of, 
found by Hobson, 173 et seq. 

Franz Josef Land, discovered, 
211 ; explored by Leigh Smith, 
254 ; by Jackson, 270 et seq. ; by 
the Duke of the Abruzzi, 302 ; by 
Wellmann, 305. 

Frazier, the, 242. 

Frobisher, Martin, 7 et seq. 

Fury, the, 64. 



Gabriel, the, 25. 

Garde, 258. 

Garlington, Lieut., 230. 

Garwood, E. J., 287. 

Geoi'ge, the, n. 

Germania, the, 200 et seq. 

Gibbons, 20. 

Gibson, 264. 

Giesecke, K. L.,258. 

Gilder, W. H., 181. 

Gladen, the, 237. 

Goodsir, H., 118. 

Gordon, Admiral, 157. 

Gore, Graham, 100, Ii7> 175' 

Graah, W. A., 258. 

Gray, David, 253. 

Gray, John, 253. 

Greely, A. W. , 224 et seq. 



INDEX 



3 11 



Greene, H., 19. 

Greenland, discovered by Erik, 2, 

8-10; explored by Hudson, 17; 

20 ; Koldewey, 200 et seq. ; for 

explorations of Nansen, Peary, 

and others, see chapters xxviii. 

and xxxii. ; Beaumont, 221 ; 

Lockwood, 227. 
Grinnell, Henry, 182. 
Grinnell Land, explored by Aldrich, 

221 5 Peary, 295. 
Griper, the, 38 et seq. 
Grosseliez, 22. 



H 



Hall, Charles Francis, 192 et seq. 
Hamilton, Lieut., 152 et seq. 
Hamke, Gale, 258. 
Hansa, the, 201 et seq. 
Harmsworth, Alfred (Lord North- 

cliflfe), 271, 295. 
Harstene, Lieut, 190. 
Haswell, Lieut., 145 
Hayes, I. I., 182 et seq.', voyage of, 

190. 
Hazen, General, 234. 
Hearne, Samuel, 23. 
Hecla, the, 38. 
Heemskeerck, J., 12. 
Hegemann, voyage of, 201 et 

seq. 
Heilprin, Prof., 264. 
Hepburn, John, 45 et seq. 
Herald, the, 129, 138. 
Hettlitz, Dr, 271. 
Hobday, George, 180. 
Hobson, Lieut. W. R., 169, 171, 

1 79, 1 80 ; discovers Gore's Record, 

174. 
Hodgson, 117. 
Holm, G., 257. 
Hood, Robert, 45 et seq. 
Hope, the, 256. 
Hoppner, Lieut., 38, 87. 
Hudson, Henry, 17 et seq., 258. 
Hudson Bay Company, formation 

of, 22. 



Ignatieff, I., 24. 
Inglefield, E. A., 156. 



International Circumpolar Stations, 

223 et seq. 
Intrepid, the, 132, 152. 
Investigator, the, 132, 137 et seq. 
Irving, Lieut., 175. 
Isabel, the, 86. 
Isabella, the, 35. 
Isbjorn, the, 207. 



Jackson, Charles, 11. 

Jackson, F. G., 270 et seq., 285. 

James, Capt., 21. 

Jeannette, the, cruise of, 244 et seq. ; 

relics found, 278. 
Jensen, 258. 
Johannsen, 273, 280 et seq. 



K 



Kane, Elisha Kent, expedition of, 

182 et seq. 
Kellett, Captain, 129, 138, 145, 

146; expedition of, 152 et seq., 

I 57- „ . 
Kennedy, Captain, 135, 136. 

King, John, 19. 

King, Richard, 96. 

Kislingbury, Lieut. , 226 ; death of, 

231. 

Kite, the, 264. 

Knight, James, 22. 

Knudsen, R., 258. 

Knutsen, H., 258. 

Kolchak, Lieut., 306. 

Koldewey, Karl, 200 et seq. 

Krabbe, 154. 



Lachambre, 290. 
Lady Franklin, the, 132. 
Legros, 113. 
Leif, 2. 

Lena, the, 242. 
Liddon, Lieut., 38. 
Lincoln, R., 231, 234. 
Lion, the, 74. 
Lutwidge, Capt., 27. 
Lyon, Capt. G. F., 64, 79. 



312 



INDEX 



M 

M'Clintock, F. L., 134, 135, 
T 5 2 ? J 53 '■> search for Franklin, 
169 et seq. 

M'Clure, J. Le M., 100, 137 etseq., 

153, 157- 
M'Gary, 187. 
M'Kay, 99. 
Mackenzie, A., 24. 
Magnet, the, 124. 
Maigaard, Christian, 263. 
Markham, A. H., 216, 219, 220, 

253- 
May, Lieut., 219. 
Mecham, Lieut., 152 et seq. 
Melville, Lord, 80. 
Melville, Lieut. , 234, 245 et seq. 
Merimade, the, 9. 
Mias, Lieut., 65. 
Middleton, Captain, 65. 
Minion, the, 16. 
Mohn, Prof., 279. 
Molinelli, Dr, 301. 
Monticello, the, 193. 
Moonshine, the, 8. 
Moore, Commander, 129, 138. 
Morton, 183, 187. 
Munk, Jens, 21. 
Muscovy Company, II. 



N 



Naddod the Viking, i. 

Nancy Dawson, the, 129. 

Nansen, F. , 244 ; crosses Green- 
land, 259 ; meets Jackson, 274 ; 
voyage in the Fram, 279. 

Nares, G., 152, 153, 215 et seq. 

Nathorst, A., 258. 

Nelson, H., 28. 

Nobel, A. 290. 

Nordenskold, A. E., early voy- 
ages of, 235 et seq.; the Vega, 
241 tt seq.; Greenland, 258-9. 

Norquist, Lieut., 243. 

North-east voyages : Willoughby, 
6 ; Jackson and Pet, 1 1 ; Barents, 
1 1 et seq. ; Russian voyages, 24 ; 
Bering, 25 et seq. ; passage dis- 
covered by Nordenskiold, 241. 

North magnetic pole, 90 et seq. 

North Polar expeditions : Thorne, 
4 ; Phipps and Lutwidge, 27 



et seq. ; Buchan and Franklin, 
31 et seq. ; Parry, 79 et seq.; 
Weyprecht, 207 et seq. ; Mark- 
ham, 220 ; Nordenskiold, 239 ; 
De Long, 244 et seq. ; Nansen, 
278 et seq. ; Andree, 289 et 
seq. ; Peary, 298 ; Abruzzi, 303 ; 
Wellmann, 304. 

North Star, the, 1 32 et seq. 

North-west expedition, suggested, 
by Cabot, 2 ; Davis, 8 et seq. ; 
Hudson, 18 et seq.; Baffin, 20; 
Fox, 21 ; Knight, 22 ; Middle- 
ton, 23 ; Hearne, 23 ; Mackenzie, 
24 ; Cook, 29 ; Ross and Parry, 
35 etseq. ; Parry, 1819, 38 etseq. ; 
1821, 64 et seq.; 1823, 68; 
Franklin, 1819, 45 et seq.; 1825, 
71 et seq. ; 1845, Ir 7 et se ?'> 
Lyon, 79 ; Ross, 87 ; Back, 
1833, 95 et seq. ; 1836, 100 et seq. ; 
Dease and Simpson, 102 et seq. ; 
Rae, 1846, 124; discovery of the 
North-West Passage by M'Clure, 
140. 

Nova Zembla, discovered by Bur- 
rough, 7 et seq.; visited Barents, 
12; by Hudson, 18. 



O 

Ommaney, E., 132, 135. 
Onkle Adam, the, 237. 
Osborn Sherard, 20, 141, 152. 
Oscar, King, 242. 
Osmer, Mr, 118. 



Parr, Lieut., 219. 

Parry, W. E., voyage of, 181 8, 

35 et seq. ; 1 8 19, 38 et seq. ; 

1821-24, 64 et seq. ; 1827, 79 et 

seq. 
Pavy, Dr, 227 ; death of, 231. 
Payer, J., 207. 
Peabody, G., 182. 
Peary, Lieut., journeys of, 263 et 

seq., 295 et seq. 
Peltier, 62. 

Penny, William, 132 et seq. 
Perrault, 57. 



INDEX 



3i3 



Pet, 11. 

Peter the Great, 24. 
Petermann, Dr, 200, 245. 
Petersen, C., 134, 169, 189, 216; 

death of, 219. 
Phipps, J. C. (Lord Mulgrave), 

27. 
Phoenix, the, 147, 156, 157. 
Pick, Capt. Richard, 264. 
Pike, Capt., 232. 
Pim, Bedford, 130, 145, 152. 
Pioneer, the, 132, 152. 
Plover, the, 129, 137. 
Polaris, the, 194. 
Pollux, the, 104. 
Prince Albert, the, 132, 135. 
Proteus, the, voyage of, 1881, 225 ; 

wreck of, 230. 
Proven, the, 241. 
Pullen, W. J., 130 et seq. 
Pytheus, 1. 



Qhirini, Count Franco, 301 ; death 
of, 303- 



R 



Racehorse, the, 27. 

Rae, 122 ; search for Franklin, 131 ; 

159 et seq. ; second expedition, 

160 et seq. ; obtains news of 
Franklin, 161. 

Ragnaldjarl, the, 304. 

Ravenscraig, the, 198. 

Rawson, Lieut., sledging expedi- 
tion, 219. 

Reid, Lieut., 65. 

Reliance, the, 74. 

Rescue, the, 132. 

Resolute, the, 132, 145 et seq., 
152; recovered by Buddington, 
157. 

Richards, Commander G. H., 152. 

Richardson, Sir John, 45 etseq., 131 
et seq. 

Rink, H., 258. 

Robeson, Mr, 194. 

Roosevelt, the, 300. 

Ross, George, 95. 

Ross, Sir James Clark, 31, 87 et 
seq., 132, 175. 

Ross, Sir John, 10, 31 ; expeditions 
of 35 et seq., 87 et seq. 



Rupert, Prince, 22. 
Ryder, Lieut., 258. 
Ryp, John Cornelius, 12. 



Sabine, Edward, Capt., 38, 41, 

258. 
Sackheuse, John, 35. 
St Peter and St Paul, the, 26. 
Samandre, 62. 
Sanderson, William, 8. 
Sandwich, Earl of, 27. 
Saunders, 132. 
Schley, Capt.W. S., relieves Greely, 

231. 
Schwatka, Lieut. F., 181. 
Scoresby, Capt. William, jun., 30, 

258. 
Scott-Hansen, Lieut., 280. 
Searchthrift, the, 7. 
Seeberg, F. G., 306; death of, 307. 
Sheddon, Robert, 129 et seq. 
Siberian Ocean, Islands of, 248, 

306. 
Sibiriakoff, A., 242. 
Simpson, Sir George, in, 122, 

159- 

Simpson, Thomas, 103 et seq. 

Smith, Leigh, relieves Norden- 
skiold, 241 ; voyages of, 252. 

Smith Sound, discovered by Baffin, 
21 ; explored by Kane and 
Hayes, 182 et seq. ; by Hall, 
192 et seq. ; by Nares, 216 et 
seq. 

Sontag, death of, 191. 

Sophia, the, 132. 

Spanberg, 25. 

Spitzbergen, discovered by Barents, 
12 ; explored by Buchan and 
Franklin, 31 et seq. ; by Norden- 
skiold, 235 ; circumnavigated by 
Carlsen, 236 ; explored by Leigh 
Smith, 252, et seq. ; by Conway, 
287. 

Steenstrup, K. J. v., 258. 

Stella Polare, the, 301 et seq. 

Steller, 26. 

Stevenson, H. F., 216. 

Strindberg, 9, 291. 

Sunshine, the, 8, 10. 

Sverdrup, Otto, 260, 280 ; voyage 
of, 293. 



3H 



INDEX 



Talbot, the, 157. 
Tegelthoff, the, 207 et seq. 
Terror, the, 1 00, 106. 
Thetis, the, 231. 
Thorne, Robert, 4, 27. 
Thorold, 1. 
Tigress, the, 198. 
Toll, Baron, 306 et seq. 
Torrell, Prof., 235. 
Trent, the, 31. 
Tschirikoff, 26. 
Tyson, E., 195. 

V 

Vaillant, 58. 
Vasilovich, Ivan, 6. 
Vega, the, 149, 242-3 ; the voyage 

of, 149 et seq. 
Verhoeff, John, 264. 
Victory, the, 86. 
Virgo, the, 290. 
Volossovich, 306. 

W 

Walker, Dr, 169. 



Walloe, Olsen, 258. 

Walsingham, Cape, 9. 

Wandell, 258. 

Warwick, Earl, 7. 

Waxell, Lieut., 26. 

Wellman, H. , 302 ; voyages of, 

304 et seq. 
Wentzel, 49 et seq. 
Weymouth, 17. 
Weyprecht, Carl, 207 ; lecture of, 

223 et seq. 
Wilde, Capt, 232. 
Willem Barents, the, 256. 
William, the, II. 
Williams, Governor, 46, 47. 
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, 6 et seq. 
Windward, the, voyage of, 271 et 

seq., 295. 
Wolstenholm, Sir John, 18. 
Wrangel Land, 245 et seq. 



Yantic, the, voyage of, 230. 
Ymer, the, 241. 
Young, Sir Allen, 169, 171, 
244. 



180, 



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